Hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions: an ecological study

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the trend of hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions and its relationship with the Family Health Strategy coverage. METHODS: Ecological study of time series using the records from the Hospital Information System, from 2005 to 2015, with data for the state of Goiás, Brazil. Trend analyses were performed by the generalized linear regression method of Prais-Winsten with robust variance, which allowed to verify if the trend of hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions was stationary (p > 0.05), declining (p < 0.05 and negative regression coefficient), or ascending (p < 0.05 and positive regression coefficient) in each region of Goiás and for each diagnosis group, stratified by sex. Pearson correlation was used to verify the degree of association between the Family Health Strategy coverage and the rate of hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions. RESULTS: Hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions accounted for 1,092,070 (30.0%) of hospitalizations in Goiás. The average hospitalizations rate due to primary care sensitive conditions was statically less than the rate for other conditions in the analyzed period (167.6% against 386.2%; t = −13.18; p < 0.001). There has been a downward trend in hospitalizations trend due to primary care sensitive conditions in Goiás and in most health regions. The trends varied between sexes in the groups of causes. We observed a negative correlation between the Family Health Strategy coverage and the hospitalizations trend due to primary care sensitive conditions in the state and also in most health regions. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions had a significant reduction trend over the analyzed period. Despite this progressive decrease, this rate remains high and the reduction trend was not linear for all causes. These results allow for directing public policies, while drawing a general overview of hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions by sex and region in the state.