Quality of care for children in the SUS is less than ideal, points out IBGE

Child care in the public health system has not reached a minimum level of quality, pointed out the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) in a survey released this Wednesday (21).

A new indicator was used based on the responses of parents and guardians whose children received some care in the 12 months prior to the second quarter of 2022, when the study was conducted.

The data are in the PNAD (National Continuous Household Sample Survey) of Primary Care for Children’s Health. The questions were applied to those responsible for the health of children and adolescents up to 13 years of age who visited a health center at least once.

The survey is an adapted version of the index called PCATool (Primary Care Assessment Tool), which in free translation means assessment instrument of primary health care. Validated in Brazil by the Ministry of Health, the methodology is adopted by other countries, which allows the international comparison of services, says the IBGE.

According to the PCATool, a score above 6.6 indicates a high quality of health care. The ease with which people use health services were measured; the regularity; continuity of treatment; and the provision of services.

A score lower than 6.6 is considered low and reveals services with a low presence of the analyzed attributes. In the study, mothers, fathers or guardians rated the services offered, and Brazil scored 5.7 (on a scale of 0 to 10).

Sought, the Ministry of Health said that “the results show that those who managed to access the service evaluate it positively”. Regarding the PCATool, the folder said that, “although the cutoff score is 6.6, the Brazilian score shows that we are on the way to achieving even better results. We hope, based on the data obtained by the study, to further qualify the care of children”.

In this analysis, not only did the country not reach the minimum level of quality, but none of the states did. Mato Grosso was the state with the highest index, 6.4. Rondônia recorded the lowest, 4.8.

The Brazilian average, however, is evaluated positively by researcher Luiz Felipe da Silva Pinto, from the Faculty of Medicine of UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).

“The data show that, even in a pandemic period, the SUS managed to resist and maintain consultation offers. Regarding the PCATool, we consider that it is very difficult to have an evaluation above 6.6. Those who use the SUS evaluate it in a different way. positive. As a researcher in this area, I evaluate the result as positive”, he said.

“Some countries like Spain, Canada, manage to have an index above 6.6. We had the pandemic context and, particularly, I thought that we would have an index below five”, added the researcher.

At the time of the research, Brazil had 38 million children and adolescents up to 13 years old. Of this total, 31.5 million (82.9%) used some health service in the period covered by the study.

Primary health care is considered the gateway to the SUS. “Having good primary health care brings general benefits to society and specific benefits to the health system, whether in terms of management, costs or other fronts”, says the coordinator of Household Sample Surveys at the IBGE, Adriana Beringuy.

Among the country’s regions, the South had the highest overall score, 6; the North, the lowest, 5.4. The other regions had similar scores: 5.6 for the Southeast; and 5.7 for the Northeast and Midwest.

The Federation units with an average above the national average are Roraima, Espírito Santo, Acre, Ceará, Tocantins, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Distrito Federal and Mato Grosso.