Evaluation of the longitudinality between users and residency programs in Family and Community Medicine in a region of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

Primary Health Care (PHC) in Brazil has become stronger in recent decades, thus increasing the demand for workers in the area. Using a cross-sectional design (n=492), this study aimed to evaluate the longitudinal tie of adult users and their relationship with the Family and Community Medicine Residency Program (Programa de Residência em Medicina de Família e Comunidade - PRMFC) in a region of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro from the perspective of adult users. To this end, we used the reduced version of the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCATool) questionnaire, combined with the extended version of the “longitudinality” attribute. This study was conducted in two family clinics, one participating in the PRMFC for over 10 years and the other non-participatory. The overall PHC score for the entire study population was 5.63 [4.56; 5.80]. Comparatively, the performance in the family clinic with PRMFC was higher (6.32 [6.12; 6.53]) than that with no residency program (4.94 [4.70; 5. 19]). Regarding longitudinality, the former also obtained a higher score (7.02 [6.81; 7.23]) when compared to the latter (5.43 [5.17; 5.68]). The results of this study suggest to administrators that the PRMFC can be a useful tool for improving the quality of services through the qualification of Family Doctors and, thus, calls for investments in the area.