Desvelando saberes e práticas de agentes comunitárias de saúde sobre a prevenção do câncer de colo uterino

Abstract

The performance of the community health worker, professional composing the Family Health Strategy, favors the transformation of problem situations that affect the quality of life of comunidade. In this sense, focusing on the high rates of mortality from cervical cancer and correlating them to prevention measures that are necessary, it is considered that the proper performance of this professional, assumes the success of health education for the prevention of cervical cancer. The objectives of this study were to assess knowledge and practices of community health agents on the prevention of cervical cancer; promote critical reflection on the actions to prevent cervical cancer; identify, from the agents, the strategies to improve adherence of women to prevention of cervical cancer. The methodological support used was anchored in the convergent analysis, mediated by qualitative approach. There were individual interviews, participant observation and the use of a diary for the conversation meetings and thematic workshop dealing on the subject discussed. The study included 13 community health workers in the interview stage and seven in other meetings. The analysis phase was based on the proposal of Bardin content analysis, with the categorization of the interviews’ results, the observations of the researchers and the IRAMUTEQ®, a program that performs quantitative diagnosis of textual data. The results showed that the knowledge of participants on cervical cancer showed diversity, involving knowledge with scientific evidence and empirical knowledge, revealing that knowledge and their practices on cervical cancer indicated gaps and fragments. Considering these results it is important to point out that strategies for the prevention this type of cancer should be planned from its organizational aspects, involving management, staff and users, requiring professional training, who must observe the interventions directly and identifying weaknesses, always in search of the concert and repair.