Time of speech-language therapy in a public service versus recommended parameters

Abstract: PURPOSE: to verify the adequacy of speech-language therapy performed at a public facility in the city with regard to time duration and frequency and compare it with the speech-language therapy parameters proposed by the Federal Board of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. METHODS: transversal retrospective observational analysis of medical records of individuals from age 0 to 14 years treated by the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences department of a public facility from 2007 until 2012. RESULTS: among the findings, the following were outstanding: prevalence of male gender (66.9%), adolescents (47.0%), most common complaint was language (86.5%), referrals done by physician professionals (49.1%), followed by educators (22.7%) and speech-language therapist (20.4%). As regards the parameters time and duration, the girls presented a significantly higher percentage compared with boys; for the frequency parameter no differences were found. The time parameter presented the best results, however, far from attaining the recommended values; the non-conformity was higher for the audiology complaints, orofacial motor skills and voice. The worst results were for the frequency parameters, whereas the voice complaint presented an adequacy of 50%. CONCLUSIONS: It is believed that the data obtained may help to improve the organization of the service, prioritizing the parameters in decreasing order, frequency, duration and time, highlighting the importance of providing conditions to implement programs to optimize public health services that are in greater demand.