Health care for children and adolescents with HIV: a comparison of services.

Objective: compare the quality of different types of health care for children and adolescents with HIV, in the experience of family members and caregivers.

Method: a cross-sectional study was conducted with 71 family members and caregivers, using the children's version of the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCATool-Brazil). The Mann-Whitney or Student's t-test and Pearson's chi-square or Fisher's exact test were used for the analysis.

Results: primary care services and, predominantly, specialized HIV services, were identified as the regular health care sources. There were no significant differences in quality, since their scores were close to the ideal level.

Conclusion: the attributes of these services need to be improved, which would entail reformulating their structural and performance aspects. In addition, it is imperative to recognize primary health care as an integral place for promoting the health of children and adolescents with HIV.