Access, accessibility, and demand at the family health strategy

ABSTRACT

Objective

to understand demand, access, and accessibility in the face of health needs, from the perspective of Family Health Strategy (FHS) professionals and users.

Method

this Grounded Theory was anchored in Symbolic Interactionism, with 34 FHS participants, users, and professionals from a large city.

Results

the daily demands at FHS and access limitations make the teams struggle due to low population coverage, high number of registered people, low resolution, lack of professionals, ineffective management and scarcity of scheduled actions. The conceptions of access, accessibility, and resolution are contextualized in embracing and humanizing, in the precision of expanding population coverage and access, in addition to users and professionals expressing their feelings of frustration, anguish and dissatisfaction due to low resolution and insufficient resources.

Conclusions and implications for practice

FHS still works on the logic of curative care, whose activities are carried out within the office, with insufficient resources, high repressed demand and many challenges. It presents subsidies for health professionals, users, and managers, to collaboratively seek strategies to face high spontaneous demand and difficulties in access.

Keywords:
Health Services Accessibility; Family Health Strategy; Primary Health Care; Grounded Theory; Nursing