Objectives:
to describe the pattern of use of health services by Brazilian children aged under five years.
Methods:
a population-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 2009 with children from 100 municipalities across five regions of Brazil. Use of the following types of health care was investigated: house-calls and outpatients doctor - previous three months - and emergency services and admission to hospital – previous twelve months. The independent variables were: sex, age, household income, level of schooling of mother, family receiving Family Grant Program benefits, having had an acute health problem, nutritional status, size of municipality, and region. Raw analyses and analyses adjusted for the association between the use of health services and economic status were carried out using Poisson's regression as a robust adjustment of variance.
Results:
of the 6,360 children, 3,422 (54%) were attended by a physician, 506 (8%) received a housecall, 2,144 (34%) were attended by emergency services and 681 (11%) were hospitalized. Children from socioeconomic class A/B consulted a doctor more, received fewer house-calls, and used the emergency services more than children from classes C and D/E. There was no difference in the frequency of admission to hospital according to socioeconomic status.
Conclusions:
the findings point to significant inequalities in the use of health services by Brazilian children.
Child; Health services; Health surveys; Health inequalities
