Objective: To assess knowledge and technical capacity of primary care physicians in the management of patients with diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure as well as patients at risk of developing chronic kidney disease, and to use the latter condition as a tracer of the quality of primary care of the Mexican health system.
Material and methods: A cross-sectional study included 149 primary health physicians in primary care units from state health care services in 20 states. An instrument with two clinical cases was applied.
Results: The average score of the physicians evaluated was 53.7 out of 100. Those physicians working in larger size units and graduated before the year 2000 tend to receive lower scores.
Conclusions: The use of chronic kidney disease as a tracer of the technical capacity of the Mexican health care system is useful to understand the problems of primary care in the country's public settings.