Factors associated with the cost of hospitalization for diseases sensitive to Primary Care in the Unified Health System

Abstract

The scope of this article is to identify the factors associated with the costs of hospital admissions for Conditions Sensitive to Primary Care (CSPC) in the Unified Health System (SUS). It involved a cross-sectional, analytical study with random samples of hospitalizations in the SUS over the period of two years. The distribution of costs and the duration of 414 hospitalizations were evaluated according to sex, age group and CSPC. The high cost had a prevalence of 37.8% and was associated with being over 40 years of age and unmarried, with an income below 1.5 minimum wages, hospitalization longer than 7 days and admission to the ICU. The average period of hospitalizations was 9.35 days, and the average cost was R$3,606.09. The hospitalization of youths had a cost/day of R$207.08, while for the elderly the cost/day was R$399.53. Men had a higher prevalence of hospitalizations and were responsible for the elevated average cost of hospitalization. Cardiac, pulmonary, and cerebrovascular diseases were prevalent, and cardiac diseases were responsible for the highest cost of hospitalization. These results point to the urgent need to bolster Primary Health Care, with constant monitoring of these diseases, thereby ensuring that available resources are sufficient to treat them, without the need for hospitalization and unnecessary expenses.

Key words:
Primary Health Care; Hospital costs; Hospitalization