Primary health care and its attributes: the situation of children under two years of age according to their caregivers

Abstract

The scope of this study was to evaluate the attributes of primary health care for children and establish associated factors. A cross-sectional, observational and analytical study was conducted. Data were collected from interviews with caregivers of children enrolled in primary health care services, using a sociodemographic and health protocol, an instrument of economic classification and the Brazilian version of the Project Complexity Assessment Tool questionnaire for children. Models were developed using Poisson regression to search for associations. Only the longitudinality attribute was well evaluated. All the other mean scores were considered low. More than 80% of respondents rated the special and general scores of primary health care with low values. Children who had no brothers, were of the female sex, with socioeconomic classification A or B, and who had male caregivers with no partner were significantly associated with the low scores. Primary health care was thus poorly rated.