Qualidade da assistência à saúde bucal na atenção primária no Brasil

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the quality of oral care provided in Brazilian primary care and identify associated contextual socioeconomic factors. This is a crosssectional study whose unit of analysis was all the oral care teams that participated in an external assessment for the second cycle of the Access and Quality Improvement Program – Primary Care. Quality was measured in the following dimensions: access, resolution, work process, care coordination and infrastructure. The quality criteria of the external assessment were grouped into these dimensions and weighted using Item Response Theory, and the Linkage Technique of the databases of modules V and VI was applied. The indicator of oral care quality was the result of clustering latent variables. Descriptive analyses were performed by region and the association between “Oral Care Quality” and the Municipal Human Development Index (HDI), using multilevel Poisson regression, with 5% significance. The study demonstrated that only 25% of the oral care teams were considered good, with significant regional differences, the southeast performing best. The infrastructure dimension results ranked highest and care coordination lowest. There was no statistically significant difference between municipalities with high and low HDIs. Quality assessment is vital to ensure the continuous improvement of quality healthcare.