AS PRÁTICAS EDUCATIVAS DOS AGENTES COMUNITÁRIOS NO PROGRAMA SAÚDE DA FAMÍLIA DE PRESIDENTE PRUDENTE

Abstract

The present study has as aim analyzing the educational practices developed by the Health Community Agents from two of the Presidente Prudente s Family Health Teams. This programme is considered a new model on basic health attention and contains a more humanized approach with greater influencing power on the family environment, in addition to promoting social-reality-transforming practices. The theoretical reference which gives this study support is the popular health education. It has been chosen the qualitative approach, through a case study, making use of bibliographic living and recorded sources. It consists on documents analysis which verse about the implementation of the programme in the municipality and on semi-structured interviews, whose material was grouped in common topics and interpreted from a theoretical referential viewpoint raised to the analysis of the problem. It highlights, as main results, information that many Community Agents are introduced to their occupations possessing precarious training and the scarce process of continued education; the educational actions described, which range from individual follow-up during home visits to interventions with groups of hypertension patients, diabetics, pregnant women, remaining the focus of these interventions still much too attached to the programmes standardized by health authorities, with prescribing obliquity. It was verified that users of the programme compliment the teams proximity to the community, acknowledge the importance of their job, but request more doctors, more medicines and less disassembling in the groups, since there is a great potion of ill people in Brazil who protest for assistance and quality in the service. It concludes that when it comes to group activities there is concern towards the programmes in the agenda, lacking of integrality in the educational actions, since these latter are reduced to lecturing. These are insufficient actions, when promoting the population s autonomy and understanding is the aim. However it is observed that the Health Community Agent can promote social support to the user, favoring new contacts, helping in the access to health services. The Health Community Agent enlarges the patients Social Network with empathy and solidarity, making possible better living and health conditions to people, contributing, consequently, to the humanization of the Family Health Programme.