Avaliação da acessibilidade ao Centro de Especialidades Odontológicas de abrangência macrorregional de Sobral, Ceará, Brasil

Abstract

The Specialized Dental Care Center for the region of Sobral in the state of Ceará (CEOR) has characteristics that render it unique, as it has regional coverage and is managed by a Local Health Consortium (which comprises 24 cities). It also works in conjunction with the School of Dentistry of the Federal University of Ceará - Sobral Campus, combining care and academic study in the same location. The scope of this article was to evaluate the accessibility to specialized care in this region with the implementation of this CEO-R. A descriptive-exploratory study with a quantitative approach was conducted by means of the collection and analysis of secondary data regarding the availability and usage of this service in addition to the application of semi-structured interviews with Oral Health Coordinators of the 24 municipalities in the consortium. The results showed that the CEO-R is equipped to meet the demand. However, geographic, financial and organizational barriers were detected, which explains the low rates of appointments scheduled and use of the services and the high rate of missed appointments, causing a significant financial impact on the cities included in the consortium.