Reflection Paper

Reflection Paper

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the article that have used regression analysis technique, in a regression analysis there is a response or dependent variable (y) may be the number of species abundance or presence-absence of a single species and explanatory or independent variable (x). The purpose is to obtain a simple function of the independent variable, which is able to describe as closely as possible the variation of the dependent variable.

For the purpose of this paper the researcher has selected an article, “The Utilization of Home Care by the Elderly in Brazil's Primary Health Care System”, the author Thumé in this article has presented that the elderly home care utilization in Brazil that has been implemented after Family Health Strategy. In this article the author has used regression technique which is derived from a cross sectional study and a logistic regression through different level of determination. Thumé (2011) has tested the utilization of home care in Family Health Strategy comparing it with Traditional Primary Health Care.

In Brazil, access to health care is a universal social right guaranteed by the government since 1988 through the Unified Health System. The Unified Health System is a decentralized system, and the organization and delivery of health care is the responsibility of municipal authorities with financial and technical support provided by state and federal governments. The local government organizes the physical structure, equipment, and professional teams to provide the population with access to health services. The goal is to invest in strong primary health care, and to this end an optional alternative model, the Family Health Strategy (FHS), was developed during the 1990s. The FHS has subsequently been adopted by many municipalities in Brazil and has replaced the Traditional Primary Health Care (TPHC) system in many areas.

The primary aim of this paper was to test the hypothesis that the FHS increases the utilization of home health care by the elderly when compared with the TPHC. A secondary aim was to investigate the sources of the home health care provided (i.e., whether public or private services were used).

The author has conducted a cross-sectional epidemiologic study during 2008 to examine utilization of home health care by a representative sample of elderly residents aged 60 years and older16 of Bagé, a southern city of Rio Grande do Sul state with approximately 120000 inhabitants. Accounting for expected refusals to participate and an anticipated design effect of approximately 1.3, we estimated that a sample size of 1530 individuals would result in 80% power to detect a minimum relative risk of 1.5 for exposures affecting up to 4% of the population.

The decision to implement the FHS model in Bagé was made by municipal government leaders in 2003. At that time,13 TPHC centers served the city. Three TPHC centers adopted the FHS in 2003, followed by 2 centers in 2004, 2 in 2006, and 1 in 2007. In the period from 2004 to 2008, 7 new primary health centers were built to increase FHS coverage in ...