In 2025
69.8% of the resident population consulted a general practitioner or family doctor in the 12 months prior to the interview
The Regional Directorate of Statistics of Madeira (DREM) today releases new indicators for the Autonomous Region of Madeira (ARM), which complement the main results of the 2025 National Health Survey (INS 2025), released on 24 June and 27 July 2026.
The INS, a statistical operation under the responsibility of Statistics Portugal (INE), whose data collection in the Autonomous Region of Madeira (ARM) was carried out by this Regional Directorate, has as its main objective the characterisation of the resident Portuguese population aged 15 or over across three major health dimensions: health status and any limitations in day-to-day activities; healthcare adopted (hospital care, consultations, medicine consumption and preventive care); and health status determinants related to lifestyle (physical activity, food consumption, tobacco and alcohol consumption and social relationships).
Today's release presents the results on access to healthcare adopted, namely medical consultations, medicine consumption and preventive care, such as flu vaccination, mammograms or blood pressure measurement by a health professional, among others, with the following highlights:
- 69.8% of the population consulted a general practitioner or family doctor in the 12 months prior to the interview, of whom 27.0% did so once and 5.0% two or more times in the 4 weeks prior to the interview;
- Of resident persons aged 15 or over, 48.9% reported having consulted a doctor of another speciality less than 12 months before the interview, and 42.4% indicated having done so 12 or more months before the interview;
- More than a third of persons aged 15 or over (37.0%) reported having taken non-prescribed medicines in the two weeks prior to the interview, and 58.4% indicated having taken prescribed medicines in that same period;
- The proportion of women aged between 50 and 69 who had a mammogram in the 2 years prior to the interview was 78.7%;
- Faecal occult blood testing in the two years prior to the interview was carried out by 51.0% of the population aged between 50 and 74;
- Among the population aged 15 or over, 74.7% consulted a health professional to have their blood pressure measured, 66.2% to have their cholesterol level measured, and 64.6% to have their blood glucose level measured.
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