Evaluation of the principle of coordination in primary health care of the child in Londrina-Pr

Abstract

Primary Care is a set of universally accessible services that promotes and protects health and prevents and treats diseases, and it is considered the initial access to the Health System. Four main essential attributes are present: accessibility, continuity, integrality and coordination. The coordination is the network of several health related services and actions that must be synchronized and continuous regardless of the location in which they occur. The goal of this study was to evaluate this coordination principle in Primary Care provided to children in 39 UBS (tr. From Basic Health Unit) in the urban area of the city of Londrina. The research is multicentric (Londrina, Cascavel and João Pessoa), descriptive and quantitative – with use of PCATool-Brasil for children. In this instrument, coordination is subdivided in integration of care (which refers to the relation between Basic Health Care and specialties) and the information system (which evaluates the health data and file availability). Amongst the 609 subjects submitted to interview, only 29.2% reported that a specialist examined the child. The coordination-integration of care score was 7.393 and the coordination-information system score was 7.620. From the eight questions concerning the coordination attribute that can be numeric-evaluated, three had scores below 6.6. The score should be higher than that to meet the concept of Primary Care. The conclusion is that the coordination attribute had a high score despite the three questions with a low score.