A atenção à saúde dos homens em relatos de profissionais da atenção primária à saúde

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the meanings of men’s health care for health professionals from Basic Health Units. It is a qualitative research, substantiated in the constructionist assumptions of the theoretical-methodological perspective of Discursive Social Psychology. This study's discussions are located, mainly, in public health studies and in gender studies about masculinities. The discursive material analyzed was produced through semistructured interviews with 11 health professionals of 8 Basic Health Units of Campina Grande-PB, 6 nurses, 2 physicians, 1 social worker and 2 nursing technicians. Semi-structured interviews, preceded by a sociodemographic script, were used for data collection. All the interviews were recorded in audio device and transcribed in Word file; posteriorly, the material was analyzed through the discourse analysis method, developed by Discursive Social Psychology theorists. Three questions guided the analysis of the material: the way they define masculinity, the explanations for the low frequency of men in health services, and the relationships that are established between the Basic Health Units and the Brazilian National Policy of Men's Health Integral Care. The majority of participants defined masculinity based on sociocultural assumptions. The explanations for the men frequency in the services are based on justifications of socioeconomic nature, justifications of sociocultural nature and justifications of institutional order. It was observed a recurrent and emphatic explanation of culturalist character for the low frequency of men in health services, which covers gender issues and the way men have been socialized in society, and can be considered a strategy, not necessarily intentional, used to obliterate the responsibility of the health system for the low frequency of this public in the services, presenting men themselves and culture as responsible for this phenomenon. Regarding the relationship between health services and the Brazilian National Policy of Men's Health Integral Care, the professionals affirm that this Policy has not been worked effectively in the Basic Health Units, presenting the management as main responsible for the fact that the PNAISH isn't really put into practice in the services, and also by the fragmentation and discontinuity that characterize health care for men.