Care coordination and longitudinality in primary health care in the Brazilian Amazon.

OBJECTIVES

to evaluate the attributes of primary health care, care coordination and longitudinality, from the perception of the professional and patients in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.

METHODS

quantitative evaluative study, in which was used an external evaluation instrument with 469 professionals and 1,888 patients from 367 primary health care facilities that adhered to the Program for Improving Access and Quality of primary health care (Portuguese acronym: PMAQ) standardized by the Ministry of Health. Data were grouped by multivariate cluster analysis in order to find a classification of primary health care from the perspective of professionals and patients.

RESULTS

the attributes of coordination and longitudinality are still expressed in a weak and undeveloped way in the Brazilian Amazon scenario.

CONCLUSIONS

it is necessary to recognize the organizational barriers and what could promote conditions for the performance of health care teams in the perspective of a continuous, integral and coordinated care.