Study of spontaneous demand at family health unit in a middle-sized town in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract

This is an exploratory-descriptive study carried out in a basic health care unit in a middle-sized town in the interior of the State of Minas Gerais. The objectives were: to describe the flow of spontaneous demand; identify the main complaints and defects in reception and to propose measures of intervention to better organize the flow and widen the work of the multi-professional team. The data collected by the health technicians were taken from 1040 patient visits. The greater number was of visits to the physician (67.7%), followed by nurses (17.8%) and nursing auxiliaries (13.3%). The main procedure was discharge (64%), followed by return (21.9%). The four groups of complaints of spontaneous demand were: respiratory (25.8%), dermatological (11%), gastrointestinal (10.2%) and osteomuscular (9.1%).