Avaliação da presença e extensão dos atributos da atenção primária em Curitiba

The attributes of Primary Health Care (PHC): access to first contact, longitudinally, comprehensiveness, coordination, family and community orientation, and cultural competence are recognized as the structural pillars of health care process, associated with service quality and intervention effectiveness and efficiency. We compared health centers that operate with the traditional model with those with Family Health Strategy (FHS), by means of the instrument PCATool-Brazil, applied to 490 doctors and nurses. In FHS, the average scores and the percentage of high scores (?6.6) in relation to the attributes longitudinally, comprehensiveness of available services and services provided, family orientation, and community orientation are significantly higher than in traditional health centers. The same occurs when these attributes are condensed as PHC Essential, Derived or General Scores. Results demonstrate that the FHS health centers in Curitiba have greater presence and extension of primary care attributes.