title: Hearing Health Care: perception of the users of a public service.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Evaluate hearing health service under the users' perspective according to the aspects: access, care, communication, and professional competence, and its correlation with clinical, sociodemographic and assistance characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is an observational analytic cross-sectional study with a probability sample stratified by gender and age. The Hearing Health Care Assessment questionnaire and the Brazilian Economic Classification Criterion questionnaire were used. In total, 214 users were interviewed, which were assisted from May 2009 to May 2013.
  
  
  RESULTS
  It was observed that most of the evaluated users are female, elderly, literate, presenting moderate degree of hearing impairment, who had access to transportation out-of-pocket, was submitted to ENT evaluation for diagnosis and sought the service to purchase a hearing aid, besides belonging to class C. Regarding user satisfaction, most were satisfied with access, hearing evaluation, personalized service, benefit for the family, communication and information, and professional competence. In the analysis of correlation between the scores, it was found that when users are satisfied with access, as well as with communication and information, the total score increases with moderate correlation coefficient.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The users showed greater satisfaction with the professional competence domain and lower satisfaction with the benefit for the family. In addition, assessment proved that access and communication are considered important quality indicators for the hearing health service according to users.
authors.affiliation: Junta de Saúde Auditiva Microrregional de Betim - Betim (MG), Brasil.
authors.forename: Débora Soares
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Jardim
authors.affiliation: Escola de Saúde Pública de Minas Gerais - Belo Horizonte (MG), Brasil.
authors.forename: Fernanda Jorge
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Maciel
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG - Belo Horizonte (MG), Brasil.
authors.forename: Marina Teixeira
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Piastrelli
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG - Belo Horizonte (MG), Brasil.
authors.forename: Stela Maris Aguiar
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Lemos
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009313:National Health Programs; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010465:Perception; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult