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

In this short essay the question is asked "what is it to be a woman?" and all that that implies from an anthropological perspective, in order to know all the aspects that make up the feminine identity and overcome the prejudices and stereotypes that society imposes.

In this presentation we will make known the sufferings of Flor Cernuda's life through her own poems. Her verses reflect a strong and fighter woman who lived in a time that did not make it easy for her. Among his poems, Paz stands out for his closeness and sensitivity.

FEMIGRAM: POETRY WITH A WOMAN'S VOICE

Systemic arterial hypertension is the most frequent among the cardiovascular diseases about 17 million people are suffering from arterial hypertension in Brazil. It is characterized by chronicity and multiplicity of associated factors, a long asymptomatic period and evolution to complications. Thus, there is an increasing need for a collective and multidisciplinary approach for obtaining more consistent and long lasting results in the control of this disease. The aim of this study was to analyze the profile of the participants of a Group of Hypertensive according to sex, age group, family and per capita income, occupation, participation in community groups, kind of health service they would seek in case of disease, frequency of the group meetings and the influence of the group as refers to controlling the high blood pressure. We used questionnaires, the records of the group meetings and the Primary Care Information System for collecting the data of the individuals from Vila Ipiranga, city of Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, who composed the sample under study. In addition, a questionnaire was applied for evaluating the influence of the group upon blood pressure control. The analysis showed that there were more women than men participating in the group; average age of over 60 years; more than 50% would seek the Health Unit in the first place in case of disease; the greater part is retired and participates in some religious group. As to the family and per capita income, the predominant groups are one to two minimum wages and one minimum wage respectively. The group meetings showed effective. All interviewed individuals stated that the group had helped controlling the blood pressure and that the meetings were important in the sense of providing information about the disease, promoting lifestyle changes and raising the awareness of the importance of following the treatment correctly. A longitudinal analysis, selecting the patients who participated three times or more, showed that 10 (76,92%) out of the 13 participants were able to lower their blood pressure, confirming the positive influence of the group for the control of arterial blood pressure.

Today, establishing a drop-in policy is one of the most important challenges of primary care. Find the right dimension for delivering care on this basis is one of the starting points for organizing the work of the Family Health Teams (FHT). The purpose of this study was analyzing the demand of drop-in visits of children and adolescents of one of the Family Health Teams of the São Marcos Health Center (SMHC) for planning the actions of the team. The family health team of the SMHC, situated in the Northeast of the city of Belo Horizonte, accepts drop-in visits during all day. The medical records over the period October 2005-September 2006 corresponding to the drop-in visits during a certain period of the day, which was reserved for this activity, were analyzed. The sample consisted of 30% of the about 5.000 visits, selected at random. The data were analyzed using Epi-Info. From the 1602 analyzed visits, 627 (39,2%) were of patients with less than 20 years of age. About 24% were children with less than 2 years and 26% were adolescents. The patients with acute complaints corresponded to 80,4% of all pediatric visits. A little more than half of the children were of feminine sex. Approximately 100 children (16,9%) dropped in for making appointments or for showing the results of exams. From these, 12% were well-child care cases and 5% carriers of chronic respiratory diseases like asthma. Four adolescents came for pre-natal care. The low percentage of children with less than two years of age in the dropin visits suggests that the monthly well-child care had worked efficiently. The same refers to the children inscribed in the asthma treatment program .Criança que Chia.. However, most of the children up to 10 years with acute complaints need appointments so that they can be cared for as quickly as possible. On the basis of these results the agendas will be reorganized and the attributions of the team members will be reviewed proposing alternatives for the users of this age group.

 The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases (STD) among the teenagers of a public school in the city of Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, comparing the differences/similarities between the gender. The methodology used was that of a descriptive cross-sectional study of quantitative character, type survey. The sample consisted of 221 students. The data were analyzed using Student.s t-test, Pearson.s chi-square test or Fisher.s Exact Test. The analyses were performed in the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software, version 10.0. Two hundred and twenty one students from the 7th and 8th grades were evaluated. None of the gender was predominating. The average age was of 14.4 ± 1.39 years. As refers to the knowledge of the teenagers about STDs, 77.4% declared that they did know something about STD, 20.8% did not have any information and 1.8% did not answer; the most cited STDs were Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) with 91.3%, syphilis (66.7%) and gonorrhea (64.3%). Almost the entire sample (93.7%) declared to know the meaning of STD, only 6.3% did not. It may be concluded that the great majority receives information at school (77.8%), from health agents (35.1%) and through TV (31%). With respect to male condom use, 90.9% of the sample uses the condom, 4.5% do not and 1.5% had never used it. This study allows concluding that the great majority of the teenagers have appropriate knowledge about STDs. The girls showed more conscious of the importance of using a condom, mentioning that the boys tended to resist to its use. This might be indicative of a sociocultural question and of the need to raise the awareness of the boys with regard to condom use.

The hospitalization of a child, in addition to bringing about major family distress, is a costly event for the health system. Besides, it can often be avoided on an outpatient care basis. The aim of this study was to identify the percentage of hospitalizations for Ambulatory Care Sensitive (ACS) conditions, i.e. those for which effective and timely care can avoid hospital admission. We investigated 3.329 hospitalizations of patients under 19 years of age, occurred between 2001 and 2004 in four hospitals of the Brazilian Health System (SUS), the main references for a population of areas astricted to a primary care service (PCS). The hospitalizations in this population were identified using the hospital information system of the GHC (Grupo Hospitalar Conceição). Univariate and multivariate analysis were employed to verify associations between independent variables and the occurrence of admissions for ACS conditions. A hospitalization rate of 2.9% was found for the studied age group. Respiratory system disorders were the leading cause of admission (36%), followed by perinatal diseases (14%), infectious and parasitic diseases (10%), disorders of the digestive system (9%), and external causes (6%). Readmission accounted for 16% of the total admissions. The hospitalization rate for ACS conditions was 35.6%, ranging from 25% to 43% across the Health Care Centers of the PCS. The variables associated with higher occurrence of hospitalizations for this  reason were: age between 1 and 4 years (p<0.01); having gone straight to the hospital because the Unit was closed (p=0.04); and having gone straight to the hospital due to the severity of the case (p=0.03). The study points to the need for a better monitoring of hospitalizations for ACS conditions - occurring more frequently in the winter months and involving children from 1 to 9 years of age for being more vulnerable to respiratory diseases - and of the number of readmissions, which did not decrease over the last four years.

The objective of this study was analyzing the social aspects that interfered with the behavior and healthy development of the children residing in a public institution, besides observing the psychological, social and educational interferences such a refuge can produce. The study was conducted in two moments aimed at analyzing the performance of the institution and the conditions of the children before and after admission. First, the children were submitted to a physical examination and establishment of their nutritional profile. The children were allowed to draw something of their own choice in order to obtain clues about their psycho-emotional condition. There was a relax moment in the form of an educative puppet show to observe the children.s spontaneity. The institution sheltered more boys than girls. The mean age was 8-11 years and the time of permanence in the institution was less than one year. A great part of the children ignored their full name, their age, the names of their parents, the grade they attended at school and even the day of the week and the current month. This situation suggests disorientation, indifference and a lack of support of their families. The study showed clearly the crucial role of the family in the formation of the individual, among others influencing behavioral, psychological and nutritional aspects. Any rupture in the family structure can harm the child for the rest of the life

Case of a 62-year-old woman presenting with erythematous lesion measuring 7 cm in the posterior thigh, with edema, singns of necrosis and yellow-greenish purulent matter in the center, accompanied by severe pain. The lesion was due to the bite of a spider of the genus loxosceles. Based on these clinical evidences the the wound was debrided and the purulent discharge was drained with complete excision of the area and total remission of symptoms.

The objective of this article is to report the experience of a cholera outbreak causing more than two thousand deaths in 2006 in Angola. I describe my observations and feelings, as well as some of the interventions performed by the team of the organization Médecins du Monde, aimed at contributing to control the outbreak. This report is a real example of how some populations are still vulnerable to easily preventable diseases