The user's perspective is essential to improve health policies aimed at guaranteeing the constitutional principles of universality and integrality. This descriptive cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate access to urgency and emergency departments of the regional hospitals in Pernambuco state, Brazil, based on user's itinerary and on the barriers to health care. A stratified random sample was selected to carry out 853 semi-structured interviews with users of seven hospitals distributed in the regions of zona da mata, agreste and sertão. Among respondents, 74.9% live in the municipality where the hospital is located, and 66.9% declared themselves registered in Family Health Team. Most of them had the hospital as first care unit (77.1%), highlighting the confidence in the service as main reason for selecting the emergency care. Regarding itinerary, respondents (99.5%) sought predominantly just one health unit and underwent medical consultation (75.4%). However, 42.8% still were transferred and of these, most (78.9%) were taken to the hospital being evaluated. Among those who required previous health care, the absence of professionals (65.5%) was the main reason for the lack of care, highlighting the deficiency in problem solving and distance between home and hospital, as important obstacles. The results reveal a scene in which the hospital is the center of health care, indicating the need for strengthening the network of comprehensive health care with a view to reducing social differences in the regional context.
regional health planning; health care accessibility; emergency care; hospital
