Locomotion difficulty and need for home care: a cross-sectional study

To investigate home visits by physicians or nurses for consultations and procedures and associated factors in families with people with mobility difficulties and need for home care.

A cross-sectional study was carried out with data from Ciclo III do Programa Nacional de Melhoria do Acesso e da Qualidade da Atenção Básica (Cycle III of the National Program for Access and Quality Improvement in Primary Care) from September 2017 to June 2018, interviewing over 140,000 users in 28,939 basic health units in 5,312 municipalities. This study analyzed home visits to individuals with mobility difficulties and the need for home care according to internal and external factors via a Poisson regression.

Of all primary healthcare service users, 7.8% stated that someone in their home had mobility difficulties and needed home care. About 70% received home visits. The highest prevalence of home visits, after adjusted analysis, occurred in the Brazilian Northeast. The greater the social vulnerability, the lower the prevalence of home visits in the case of mobility difficulties. Municipalities with 100% coverage from the family health strategy showed a higher prevalence of home visits than those with coverage below 50%.

External factors, such as income and social vulnerability index (which have a greater relation with macrosocial determinants), continue to point toward inequalities in care; whereas internal factors, such as family health coverage, community health agent coverage in all micro-areas, and the possibility of receiving care without prior appointments indicated better results. This study reinforces the importance of public policies that encourage complete family health teams to provide comprehensive care to the population.