[Complaints and suggestion slips as a method of integrating users' viewpoints into primary health care. A comparison...

To analyze consumer's opinions as a method of incorporating them in the programmes whose aim is to improve the Quality of Primary Health Care. To compare the problems the consumers found with those detected by professionals through the nominal group technique.

Transversal descriptive.

Primary Health Care Center. Manises Health Centre.

Analyze the ideas included in the suggestions box during the 14 months since the programme was set up were analyzed.

The 89 problems found by the consumers as well as the professionals are the following: accessibility, 37%; structure, 36%; organization, 13%; personal relationship, 6%; professional knowledge, 3%; information, 2%, and continuity, 2%. The most frequent problems were: difficulties in connecting with Health Center by telephone, loss of medical records in the visits, lack of continuous assistance by the same doctor, absence of a public telephone.

The possibility to give ideas about how to improve the quality of the Health Center by using a suggestion box is used more often than the possibility of making a formal complaint. The ideas fundamentally refer to structural problems, organizational ones and accessibility. The nominal group technique is the best method for professionals to detected quality problems.