Saúde da criança no Estado do Rio Grande do Norte: acesso e qualidade do cuidado na atenção primária à saúde

Abstract

Access and quality of care in early childhood, in the Brazilian context of Primary Health Care (PHC) are influenced by the principles of the Unified Health System (SUS) and the main health policies of the child, represented by the Children and Adolescents Statute (CAS), the National Children Health Policy and the early childhood legal milestone. The Family Health Strategy (FHS) plays a central role in reorienting the model of care toward the integrity and improved performance of child care. This study aims to evaluate the health care of children in APS, from the perspective of access and quality of care in eight health regions of the State of Rio Grande do Norte. 13 essential aspects of child care were analyzed, in the components of supply, of active search and registration throughout two historical moments, from the multicenter research database of the National Program for Improving Access and Quality Primary Care / PMAQ / PC. The PMAQ, launched in 2011, sets up a new strategy for improving care through assessment, coordination of actions and certification focusing on the work of primary care teams. It is an evaluative study, cross-sectional, with a quantitative approach, performed with secondary data from PMAQ / PC, the first two cycles of the program, carried out from 2011 to 2014. The universe of this research includes 407 family care teams, from 112 municipalities of Rio Grande do Norte who were part of the two phases of the research. Data analysis was developed quantitatively through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0, with subsequent linkage of the two created databases, one for the 1st cycle and one for the 2nd cycle. As data is paired, after having performed the linkage, data was analyzed using the McNemar test, whose variables are dichotomous nature (yes/no). In all comparisons, the 5% significance level was used (p <0.05). The main results demonstrate regional heterogeneities, with similarities and specificities, expanding trends of access and quality of care in early childhood within the APS of 8 health regions. However there has been challenges in the active search for and attention to the most vulnerable groups such as premature infants, which could have been decisive for the increasing neonatal mortality. The increase in violence and accidents in early childhood shows a qualification of APS on this record, but reveals the need for qualification of supply and health professionals acting for preventive interventions and health promotion focused on early childhood in the family and community context face to their local realities. The performance in access and quality of care in PHC, from the perspective of PMAQ, shows a different picture that reveals the desirability of adopting precocious and timely interventions for early childhood, presented in this study.