Use of rehabilitation services by persons with disabilities in Brazil: A multivariate analysis from Andersen’s behavioral model

BACKGROUND: For many years, discussions about health care for people with disabilities (PwD) in Brazil have not been treated as a priority; however, based on the advances made at the beginning of this century, new policies have been developed with the aim of improving access of these people to health services. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze how individual characteristics and contextual indicators are associated with access to rehabilitation services for PwD in Brazil. METHODS: A multivariate analysis was performed based on data from the National Health Survey 2013, considering access to rehabilitation services by PwD as the primary outcome and individual and contextual factors selected from Andersen’s behavioral model as independent variables. The contextual variables were reduced to two composite indicators (1-primary health care coverage and unfavorable socioeconomic conditions, and 2-economic inequality) from the analysis of the principal components. Poisson regression analysis with robust variance was performed to estimate the prevalence ratio (PR) and the respective 95% confidence interval (95%CI). RESULTS: Access to rehabilitation services by PwD was more prevalent in people aged 0 to 17 years (PR = 3.28; 95%CI 2.85–3.78), who are illiterate (PR = 1.24; 95%CI 1.09–1.40), whose socioeconomic level is A or B (PR = 1.60; 95%CI 1.35–1.88), who have health insurance (PR = 1.31; 95%CI 1.15–1.49), who have severe limitations (PR = 3.09; 95%CI 2.64–3.62), who live in states with a good offer of Specialized Rehabilitation Centers, both type II (PR = 1.20; CI95% 1.08; 1.33) and type IV (PR = 1.29; CI95% 1.15; 1.44), and who have greater coverage of primary health care, but unfavorable socioeconomic conditions (PR = 1.15; CI95% 1.03–1.28). CONCLUSION: The results clarify the social inequities that exist regarding access to rehabilitation services for PwD in Brazil and highlight the need to formulate and implement public policies that guarantee the realization of the rights of these people.