Medical services in the field of family health: impact assessment from the users perspective

Abstract

Assessing the impact of the family health services is indispensable for a corrective feedback, however it has not been studied at yet how the users feel about these services. The objective of this study is thus to measure the impact of the family health services from the viewpoint of the users, specifically according to sex, age, educational level and professional activity. The survey carried out with this purpose included: a transversal analytical study; application of two MOS SF 36 questionnaires to the users of a family health unit on March 14 and 15, 2007; convenience sample of patients with more than 16 years of age, following the order of appointments. One hundred and twenty seven (57,7%) from the 200 distributed questionnaires were returned. The age mean was 50,4 years (males 54,5±16,7 and females 48,4±17,0) and the age group below 65 years represented 73,4%. In comparison to the year before, 34,6% ranked their health status as equal, better or good and 22,2% as a little better. The study still argues that knowing what the users think about the doctors work is important for increasing the effectiveness of each appointment, thus improving the accessibility. There are no data available for comparing the results found in this study and it is concluded that, in comparison to the year before, the health status of 22,2% of users was found better against 91,1% qualifying their health status as worse.