Barriers to and facilitators of communication to care for people with sensory disabilities in primary health care: A multilevel study

Objective: Communication barriers are the main obstacle for people with sensory disabilities (visual and hearing) to access health services. This study aims to describe the presence of facilitators of communication of basic health units in Brazil and to verify its associated factors. Methods: Cross-sectional multilevel study, of 38,811 health units in 5,543 municipalities between 2012 and 2013, collected in the National Program for Improving Access and Quality in Primary Care (Programa Nacional de Melhoria do Acesso e da Qualidade da Atenção Básica – PMAQ-AB). The outcome was defined by grouping facilitators of communication (braille material; hearing resources; visual communication; accessible list of service; professionals to welcome users with sensory disabilities). The two levels were structured, using the variables: level I (contextual): macro region, population size, and GDP per capita; and level II (service): extended professional team (psychologist/social worker); service shifts; welcoming room; publishing of service hours; presence of physical access facilitators. Multilevel Poisson regression with hierarchical modeling was used in both stages. Results: The presence of facilitators of communication is small in Brazilian health units (32.1%). It is more frequent in the municipalities with a higher GDP (RP = 1.02, 95%CI 0.92 – 1.12) and population size (RP = 1.25, 95%CI 1.02 – 1.52). Conclusion: Welcoming users is the main access facilitator and should be the focus of initiatives to improve health care for disabled persons. Universal access with adequate services, removal of communication barriers and encouragement to properly welcome users must be promoted.