Primary care assessment tool (PCAT): Developing a new baseline for evaluating Brazilian health services

Abstract

In Brazil, within the SUS, Primary Health Care (PHC) gained relevance from the Family Health Strategy’s structuring from the 1990s to the 2000s. Several instruments are available in the world to evaluate PHC services, including the family of instruments of the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT), developed and disseminated by Starfield & Shi to assess the existence and extent of the features of primary health care services. Reinforcing the importance of using this instrument in Brazil, the Ministry of Health published in 2020 a new edition of the Brazilian version that informs the methodology used for such instruments, reviving the role of IBGE as a significant external evaluator of the SUS. The IBGE pioneered in its primary household random sample survey, the National Health Survey, a question-based module of the reduced version of the PCAT for adult users. The leading global results found for Brazil (overall PCAT score=5.9) inform that those who use PHC services (adults with referred morbidities) the most are also those who evaluate these services most positively. Differences were also observed among the residents of households registered by the family health teams, those receiving visits from the community and endemic workers, and age groups (older people evaluate services more positively).