Factors that interfere in user access to a basic health care outpatient clinic

Abstract

Quantitative research to characterize the users of a basic health care outpatient clinic in Porto Alegre/RS and to identify why those from outside of the region covered sought care in the field of general medicine. A simple descriptive analysis of the data obtained in semistructured interviews with 520 users who were waiting to be seen found that most of the respondents live in Porto Alegre, although they do not belong to the area covered. Among the reasons mentioned for coming to this basic care clinic were that supposedly it was nearer home, greater flexibility in making the first appointment and the follow-up, dexterity in performing exams, good quality medical care and general attention at the clinic, and ease in obtaining medications and making appointments with specialists. The results showed that if there is flexibility in the organization of the municipal system, the users come to the one they find most useful, using criteria of choice that are not limited to easy geographic access, but involving mainly easy functional access, i.e., advantages resulting from the work process of the health care service.