RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To find out how the population in Health Area IV of Navarra (Tafalla) see the new components of the primary care team (PCT) and their health education functions. DESIGN: A crossover descriptive study. SITE. Health Area IV of Navarra (Tafalla). PARTICIPANTS: 816 people aged 18 or over and who lived in the area under study made up a sample stratified according to age, gender and where they lived. Interviewees were selected through the random routes method. MAIN MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: A personal interview with a questionnaire was carried out in the home of the participants during March and April, 1988. There was widespread ignorance of what the PCT meant; paradoxically, this ignorance was significantly higher (p = 0.014) in the base areas where EAP had been set up (80%) than in those areas where it had not (73%). In spite of this, in the Tafalla base area the components of the PCT had begun to be understood. Only 7% replied that they knew other functions, apart from health care, of the PCTs: here, it was in the areas where PCTs had been set up that there was significantly greater knowledge (p = 0.0004). CONCLUSIONS: A large percentage of the population is ignorant regarding new elements (staff and functions) introduced into the PCT.