Author(s): Lemos, Natália ; Serra, Sara ; Silva, Lurdes ; Quesado, Patrícia ; Lemos, Kátia
Date: 2025
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/11110/3148
Origin: Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave
Subject(s): key audit matters; audit report; public health sector
This study aims to identify the determinants of the number of Key Audit Matters (KAM) disclosed in the audit reports, in the public health sector en-tities, from 2017 to 2021. Based on panel data, we estimate the fixed effects and random effects models, considering as determining factors the number of qualifications, the number of emphasis of matter, the gender of the audi-tor, the size of the entity, and the audit firm selected. We conclude that there is a greater disclosure of KAM in audit reports issued by female audi-tors. However, there is an inverse relationship between the number of quali-fications included in the audit report and the number of KAM disclosed. We also found a positive association between the number of emphasis of matter and the number of KAM disclosed, and that the Non-Big5 audit firms dis-close less KAM. This investigation makes its contribution to previous litera-ture by identifying and verifying how certain factors influence the number of KAM disclosed in the audit report. In particular, this study distinguishes itself from most studies focused on the number of KAM disclosed by identi-fying factors that determine the disclosure of KAM in the specific context of Public Interest Entities.
This work is financed by national funds through the FCT - Foundation for Sci-ence and Technology, I.P., under project UIDB/04043/2020
