Humanization of care in Primary Health Care: social representations of people with pulmonary tuberculosis

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the social representations of people with pulmonary tuberculosis regarding humanization of care in Primary Healthcare. Method: This descriptive, qualitative study is based on the Social Representation Theory’s procedural approach. It was conducted in four Family Health Units in Belém, Pará, Brazil, with 30 individuals undergoing treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis. Between March and June 2022, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, the corpus of which was submitted to the Analyse Lexicale par Contexte d’un Ensemble de Segments de Texte (version 2012) software. Results: The corpus was divided into 470 Elementary Context Units, using 363 (77.23%). Five lexical classes were generated, with classes 2 and 3 standing out for highlighting the social representations of the topic. This context supported humanization of care by a sense of trust and good treatment, despite the limitations of the physical structure and material resources of the health units. Conclusion: Human relationships are important in care activities, especially given the challenges of multidisciplinary work in Primary Healthcare, encouraging the development and strengthening of bonds between teams and patients.