Satisfaction regarding attendance in nursing consultations in a primary healthcare center in the northeast of Brazil

Objective: To identify service users’ satisfaction regarding attendance in nursing consultations in a primary healthcare unit and to ascertain the aspects associated with the quality of the same, based on information from the service users. A cross-sectional study. Setting: A primary healthcare center in the Northeast of Brazil. Subjects: The data were obtained through the Primary Care Assessment Tool, applied with 373 patients attended by nurses. Measures: To analyze the data, the Pearson Chi-squared test was applied, with a level of significance of p<0.001. It was observed that 81% of the service users assessed the nursing consultation as good. There was a significant association between service users’ satisfaction and the following aspects of the nursing consultation: reason for the consultation; undertaking of treatment in the unit; receiving medications through the service; undertaking a specific physical examination; duration of the consultation; and listening to the client’s complaints. The service users are satisfied with the nursing consultation. However, a significant proportion continue to show dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the consultation, above all those who are not treated in the unit, and whose attendance lasted from 3 to 10 minutes, and which did not involve the undertaking of a specific physical examination.