Trabalho de agentes comunitários de saúde em ações educativas a pessoas com hipertensão e diabetes que vivem no campo

Abstract

Community Health Agents know the territory where they live and work, which facilitates their work with families. As a link between the health teams and the community, the Community Health Agent identifies the problems that affect the health of the population and shares this information with other team professionals, contributing to the planning and development of family health care actions . The aim of this study was to describe the educational actions developed by Community Health Agents in the care of people with Hypertension and Diabetes mellitus who live in rural areas. It is a field research, descriptive and qualitative in nature. The research was carried out in all rural health units in a city in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, from June to August 2019. Sixteen Community Health Agents resident in the rural area delimited by the Community Health Agents Strategy participated. Community Health Agents who were on vacation, report or certified during the collection period were excluded from the study. Data collection took place through semi-structured interviews. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in full by the author of the study, using the Microsoft® Office Word program. The average duration of each interview was 50 minutes. Data analysis was based on the Content Analysis proposed by Bardin. The research is supported by the ethical and legal precepts of Resolution nº. 466/2012 and no. 510/2016 of the National Health Council/MS. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee on May 23, 2019, under Opinion n. 3,343,665 and CAEE No. 13164819.9.0000.5346. It was possible to identify that the strategy participants are promoters of educational actions, such as home visits, social groups, conversation circles, lectures and activities in the waiting room. Participants demonstrated that they have little knowledge about the care aimed at people with hypertension and diabetes, affecting the development of their educational activities. In the implementation of these actions, difficulties arising from the daily work were addressed, such as the lack of permanent education and the initial course for training the Community Health Agent; lack of team support and user participation; lack of informational materials to support the actions and also the lack of minimum conditions to carry out work in the field, making their work even more challenging. It was concluded that there is a need for discussions and reflections between health teams, communities and municipal managers on the importance of recognizing the educational practices that the Community Health Agent develops in the care of people with hypertension and diabetes who live in the countryside, with a view to the strengthening of Primary Health Care practices.