Managing COVID-19 care in the pandemic context: impact of family health coverage.

OBJECTIVES

to compare the management of Primary Health Care services in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic among Brazilian municipalities, considering Family Health team coverage.

METHODS

a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted with 1,134 municipal health managers. Data were collected using Google Forms® and analyzed using Prevalence Ratios using a Poisson regression model with random effects.

RESULTS

municipalities with team coverage of less than 25% showed greater readaptation of services and restructuring of Primary Health Care flow (7%; CI: 1; 1.14), coverage between 25%, and 49.99% of teams showed greater restructuring of Primary Health Care flow (7%; CI: 1.02; 1.12) and changes in referral and counter-referral services (21%; CI: 1.05; 1.38).

CONCLUSIONS

the teams reorganized and restructured services during the critical period of the pandemic, strengthening family health as the main service of Primary Health Care.