Gisele Paula Martins

Primary care is recommended as an organizing principle for health systems. The objective of the present investigation was to obtain in-depth knowledge about the accessibility, utilization and longitudinality of primary care services in the municipality of Uberaba. To this end, the authors evaluated the accessibility, the utilization of the reference service by the population served and the ability of these persons to identify the primary care reference service in the area where they live; the opinion of users about the ability of the health professionals to identify the population served by the area of action of its health service; the perception of users regarding the existence of interpersonal bonding between the users of the health services and the professionals of the health team. An additional objective was to evaluate whether the strategy adopted for the assistance process at the primary care services studied influenced the accessibility, utilization and longitudinality of the care offered. This was a quantitative, descriptive and transverse study conducted by applying a questionnaire to randomly selected households in the Sanitary District II (SDII) of the municipality of Uberaba, MG. A total of 795 interviews were held in the households selected by systematic sampling during the period from September 2005 to March 2006. Results and discussion: 74% of the interviewees were able to identify the location of the health unit in their neighborhood. Data analysis showed that 96% of the persons interviewed did not perceive the existence of important barriers that would impair accessibility in geographical terms. However, values much lower than those considered to be adequate in the literature consulted were identified regarding waiting time before being attended at the reception of the service unit and before receiving clinical procedures or procedures of health prevention/promotion. The present findings also suggest that the type of work organization and the hours of functioning of the primary health care units were organizational obstacles that impaired the access of the persons to the services offered. Only 69.3% of the interviewees stated that they utilized the reference primary care health unit in the area where they reside in order to obtain some type of care, a percentage that varied widely according to the type of procedure investigated. The results of the present investigation indicate low bonding between the users and professionals of the services studied, as well as an only incipient utilization of the reference unit as a regular source of care along time. In the comparative evaluation between the different areas of coverage of the SDII and the different forms of care, scores were attributed regarding the percentages reached in each characteristic investigated. Data analysis suggested that the organization of the service based on a strategy of family health improved the ability to identify the reference unit, but with no effect of its utilization. Despite the low scores reached in all areas of coverage for organizational accessibility, the areas organized with family health teams presented slightly higher scores, suggesting that this form of organization of health services favors the organizational aspects investigated. Analysis of the data regarding the utilization of the services also indicated a low impact of the strategy adopted for the organization of the assistance process in the primary care services of the areas studied on the utilization of these services by the population served. The evaluation of aspects involving the relationship between users and health professionals yielded low scores in all areas studied. The ability of users and health professionals to identify each other by name obtained slightly higher scores in the areas where the services are organized with family health teams. Thus, it seems appropriate to assume that the family health strategy favors the identification of users and professionals by name, especially for the users in relation to the professionals. This observation is also valid for the analysis of user perception of the ability of the team to become well acquainted with both users and their families. The data did not permit us to relate the ability of the unit teams to respond to the necessities of the users to the organization strategy of the health services in the study area. The longitudinality component, investigated on the basis of the perception of the user regarding the care provided with emphasis on the person, was the aspect that received the lowest score. The findings of this evaluation did not indicate an impact of the strategy of organization of health services regarding the formation of bonding between users and health professionals.

"Evaluation on Primary Care Services in the municipality of Uberaba: acessibility, utilization and longitudinaly." / "Avaliação dos serviços de atenção primária à saúde no município de Uberaba: acessibilidade, utilização e longitudinalidade da atenção"

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