[Knowledge and use of the Information System on Public Health Budgets (SIOPS) by municipal health administrators, Pernambuco State, Brazil].

Considering the importance of Brazil's Information System on Public Health Budgets (SIOPS) as a tool for planning, management, and social control of public expenditures in health, this article aimed to evaluate the relationship between the regularity of data entry into the SIOPS and knowledge and use of the system by municipal health administrators in Pernambuco State, Brazil. Ten municipalities were selected from the State's five meso-regions, five of which entered information into the system and five only on an irregular basis. Semi-structured interviews were performed with the municipal health secretaries. Analysis of the data showed that command of information technology and knowledge of the System do not affect the regularity of data entry, as a function of the distance between the Municipal Health Secretariat administrators and the SIOPS, such that the data are normally entered by outsourced services. Thus, the resulting information has not been fully explored by systems administrators as a management tool.