Primary health care performance in Brazil and association with the More Doctors physician recruitment program/Qualidade da atencao primaria a saude no Brasil e associacao com o Programa Mais Medicos/Calidad de la atencion primaria de salud en Brasil y relacion con el Programa Mas Medicos.(Artigo original texto en portugues)

Objective. To assess the performance of primary health care (PHC) in Brazil and its association with the More Doctors Program (Programa Mais Medicos, PMM). Method. This nationwide cross-sectional study used the Primary Care Assessment Tool validated for Brazilian Portuguese (PCATool-Brasil) to determine the achievement of PHC according to user experience associated with three physician categories: Brazilian physicians participating in the PMM, Cuban physicians participating in the PMM, and Brazilian physicians not linked to the PMM. The following PHC scores were calculated: overall PCA score, accessibility (first contact), and longitudinality. The association between PHC scores, physician category, and other user and physician characteristics was investigated using multilevel analysis. Results. The overall PCA score for Brazil was 6.78, and the longitudinality score was 7.43. There was no difference in these scores among the three physician categories. The overall accessibility score was 4.24. A small but significant difference (P < 0.001) in accessibility score was detected among physician categories: 4.43 for Cuban physicians participating in the PMM (CI: 4.32-4.54), 4.08 for Brazilian physicians participating in the PMM(CI: 3.98-4.18), and 4.20 for Brazilian physicians not linked to the PMM (CI: 4.09-4.32). Age, socioeconomic level, presence of chronic diseases, and home visits by physicians positively influenced the overall PCA score on multilevel analysis. Conclusions. The type of physician did not influence the primary care orientation (overall score) of the healthcare system in Brazil. PMM was associated with higher accessibility sores in more socioeconomically vulnerable areas. Multilevel analysis showed that PCH may be strengthened by the reinforcement of essential physician roles (such as home visits) and by improving access for socioeconomically vulnerable, younger populations or those without chronic diseases. Keywords Primary health care; Family Health Strategy; health services research; Unified Health System; health systems; Brazil. Objetivo. Avaliar a qualidade da atencao primaria a saude (APS) no Brasil e sua associacao com o Programa Mais Medicos (PMM). Metodos. Este estudo transversal de abrangencia nacional utilizou a ferramenta PCATool-Brasil para avaliar a qualidade da APS a partir da experiencia dos usuarios vinculados a tres categorias de medicos: medicos brasileiros do PMM, medicos cubanos do PMM e medicos brasileiros nao vinculados