Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The aim of this qualitative and quantitative research was to get to know and analyze the working conditions of the public servants who work at the National Institute of Social Security (from the Portuguese Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social) and have ties with the Social Security System in the south of the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, focusing on the implications to their health. This exploratory research was performed between 2013 and 2017. The sample was composed of 165 workers from 11 agencies of the National Institute of Social Security in that region, who filled out a questionnaire with scales to rate working conditions and well-being in association with open questions. In a second moment, we adopted the narrative technique with the goal of complementing the data. The mean result of the working conditions scale (0-10) was 6.65 (SD = 1.39); as for the well-being, the mean result of the scale (0-7) was 4.99 (SD = 1.13). We observed ethical dilemmas deriving from the quality of the work, with the prioritization of the fulfillment of quantitative goals due to the introduction of the logic of the private sector within the management of the work in the public sphere. We concluded that the working conditions and well-being have negative repercussions on the health of the workers.

We discuss the professional integration of Collective Health graduates, particularly regarding the challenges, the potentialities and the strategies of integration in the world of labor. The production of data occurred mainly by means of three focal group sessions with the graduates from the classes of 2012.2, 2013.2 and 2014.2 of the undergraduate course on Collective Health of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, in Portuguese). The resulting accounts were systematized and subjected to Bardin’s thematic content analysis technique. Regarding the professional challenges, we discuss the subcategories: salary, recognition of the Collective Health profession, political interference, and identity. As for the potentialities, they have the following subcategories: practical experiences during the undergraduate studies; a center for knowledge and practice in Collective Health; and the circumstances within the Municipal Health Department of the state capital of Natal. Regarding the strategies for professional integration, we identified actions of an individual as well as collective nature, a movement organized by graduates and students, who aim to divulge the course and its professional, as well as to make progress in the process of construction of a new profession.

This research aims to examine the practice of matrix support in mental health from the case study of the experience of the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, between the years 2013-2014. From a qualitative approach, there were semi-structured and individual type of interviews with five psychologists and two representatives of management involved with this in mental health in the city, as well as participant observation in matricial meetings. Data were analyzed using the methodology of content analysis. In the final reflections, it is clear that the support matrix has transformed the employment relationship in basic health units in the sense of co-responsibility and integrated work between the teams. Nevertheless, we still need to move forward with regard to the construction of the treatment plan, expanding the scope of interventions beyond the clinical and individual care, including the prospect of working with groups and in the territory.

The study had the goal of presenting the distribution of nurses in the job market with a weekly workload greater than or equal to forty hours according to the regions of Brazil and the kind of workplace (whether in the private or public sectors). It was a cross-sectional study, conducted between 10 and 27 of February 2017, with on-line data from the medical-sanitary researches conducted in 2002, 2005 and 2009 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. We analyzed a total of 179,337 nurses in the 3 evaluated years. We compared their proportions according to each geographical region of Brazil and the workplace using Pearson’s Chi-squared test (α = 5%). Nursing was the only college-level healthcare occupation that presented a larger and increasing proportion of professionals with a weekly workload greater than or equal to 40 hours (p < 0.001), and this proportion is greater in the public sector and in the Northern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the country. The occupation of nurse still has an unfavorable workload, which constitutes a challenge to the nurses and to nursing as a profession.

The research analyzed the transfer of funds to Health Social Organizations through congressional amendments in the Legislative Assembly of the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. The study was conducted through an analysis of documents. A cross-check of data was performed in order to identify the possibility that these organizations indeed received funds through congressional amendments between 2009 and 2014. We analyzed 109 amendments that proposed the transfer of funds to the Health Social Organizations and their sponsoring entities. In that period, a total of R$ 4.817 million were proposed for those institutions: R$ 4.627 million for the Evangelical Benevolent Society of Espírito Santo (from the Portuguese Associação Evangélica Beneficente Espírito-Santense), and R$ 190 thousand for the Santa Catarina Congregation association (from the Portuguese Associação Congregação de Santa Catarina). According to the data, there is a relationship between the number of congressional amendments that were proposed for these sponsoring entities and the political parties that won the elections. In election years, there is an increase in the number of amendments proposed. We highlight the inexistence at the Espírito Santo Legislative Assembly of transparency instruments to oversee the executions of the congressional amendments.

In this article, we describe and discuss the main operational issues of participatory research fieldwork, highlighting the dilemmas of the researcher and research subject/collaborator relationship in the context of the Family Health Strategy activities in a territory where there is high social vulnerability. We created the research management group, consisting of managers, professionals (emphasizing the community health agents) and researchers, aiming to develop strategies and reflect on the results of the research. We undertook participant observation of daily life, field daybooks, we took systematic notes, and made transcripts of the meetings. The analysis methodology used was Thompson's in-depth hermeneutics. This methodological combination made it possible to emphasize everyday experiences, adding them to the ‘ground,’ to what supports the experiences, i.e. the local history, culture, politics, and the organization of the work in health, on intersubjective and social settings of the territory and of people's life history. In this context, the management group set the tone of the research actions, although its group process showed the tensions experienced by the Family Health Strategy. The horizontal dialogs conquered by the work done by this group allowed for a transformation and construction of knowledge shared among the field players and researchers, who were involved with the dilemmas experienced.

Considering the breadth and complexity of the role that community health agents play in the Family Health Strategy, the purpose of the study presented in this article was to get to know the profile and the reality of these professionals' work to contribute to the consolidation of the Unified Health System. This was a quantitative study conducted in ten municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, from July 2012 to August 2013. Family health units with complete teams were selected, and a total of 121 community health agents took part in the study. Data were collected through a self-administered structured questionnaire. The results showed that the agents' most frequent activities were home visits, registration updates, team meetings, and follow-up on the priority groups defined by the Ministry of Health. Although many of the agents completed the smart map and the health diagnosis, only 13.2 percent of them identified families at risk, and 14.9 percent surveyed the health issues of their micro-area. Thus, the true purpose of the smart map and of the health diagnosis, or of the agent's participation in the preparation of these instruments was questioned, which could be restricted only to formalize the practice.

An analysis was made of actions carried out by community health agents regarding community guidance on the rational use of medications in the Family Health Strategy in the municipality of Palmas, state of Tocantins, Brazil. This was a descriptive and exploratory study with a quantitative approach, done with 246 agents between January and April 2014. Data were collected via a questionnaire to verify the training and specific information on medications and on the risks of pharmacotherapy in their work. It was noted that 88%of the agents had no training on medications; 75.5% believed they did not have enough knowledge to provide guidance on medications; 80.41% said that the team never discussed topics on medications, and 90.20%felt they needed such training. The study revealed that these professionals sought information from various sources – medication insert leaflets were their main source (71.14%). Among the community health agents, respectively 52.46% and 50% asked for help from the nurse to solve issues and answer questions about pharmacotherapy. Among them, 68.03% considered it important to provide guidance to the families, but they said they need permanent education. There was a clear need for community agent qualification and training in promoting the rational use of medications, considering their role as health promoters in the community.

The study aimed to understand the Family Health Strategy process implementation and monitoring at a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, using as qualitative research methodology. Sixteen managers were interviewed and documentary sources analyzed in the period ranging from August 2011 to May 2012. The material was submitted to the operative analysis proposal. It was noted that the first management team of the strategy triggered an effervescent process of transformation of a reality considered as fragmented and insufficient, having opted for outsourcing in worker hiring, for community participation, and for permanent education. The second management team chose to strengthen the emergency units, with no participation of social control. Work management and the municipal management's choices were Strategy weaknesses. The restructuring of primary care, which the Strategy aimed at achieving, was postponed. In conclusion, the study showed the complexity of undertaking the municipal management of the Unified Health System and of sedimenting primary care as the citizens' preferred port.

Incorporating the perspective of rights and citizenship to public policies on food and nutrition goes through the social practice of the players involved in the implementation of these policies. The aim of the study was to understand the nutritionists' perceptions and practices on the human right to adequate food in the context of their professional activities in the National Program for School Feeding. The study was qualitative, developed in 2014, and data were collected by means of a focus group. Eleven nutritionists from municipalities located in the West Santa Catarina Mesoregion (Brazil) participated. The statements were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed according to the thematic content analysis technique. The results showed that the participants had a comprehensive perception of the human right to adequate food, in different dimensions and relations with the aspects related to it. The nutritionists emphasized the importance and the challenge of intersectoral action linked to the community. However, there appeared to be a limitation in teamwork and in dialog with the families, possibly due to fragile theoretical-methodological and political support for intervention in this field. The nutritionists' comprehensive perceptions on the human right to adequate food, although poorly substantiated from the theoretical and political viewpoint, showed the challenge to be faced in vocational training, both in undergraduate and in permanent education.