A assistência à saúde prestada à pessoa idosa na percepção dos profissionais da atenção primária à saúde

Abstract

Introduction: This study assumed that the gateway to care for the elderly is the Family Health Strategy, and had the objective of knowing the perception of professionals about the actions provided to the elderly in Primary Health Care. Methods: Descriptive study with a qualitative approach that sought to evaluate the assistance provided to the elderly according to the perception of higher-level health professionals through audio-recorded interviews based on a semi-structured questionnaire so that the interviewees could speak freely about developments of the main theme, having as a field of study of Family Health Units in Alexânia, Goiás (GO), carried out from April 2022 to May 2022. The collected data were analyzed according to Bardin's methodological suggestions, comprised of three basic stages: pre-analysis; exploration of the material; data processing and interpretation. Results: 17 interviews were carried out among health professionals, with ten nursing professionals, four medical professionals and 3 dentistry professionals. From the analysis of the interviews, three categories emerged, namely: National Policy for the Elderly/Knowledge and Applicability, Health actions offered to the elderly, Difficulties in assisting the elderly. It was observed that the professionals did not report clear and concise knowledge about the National Health Policy for the Elderly (PNSPI), and that, for the most part, they restricted their perception of the functional assessment of the elderly to clinical assessment. The speeches revealed that the professionals' perception of the concept of health for the elderly was focused on disease control and not on the construction and maintenance of independence and autonomy proposed by the PNSPI. The interviewees reported that the health actions provided to the elderly population were aimed mainly at the collective and did not take into account the diversity, the heterogeneity of the aging processes and the functional profile. Conclusion: This study can contribute to reflection on the dissociation between perception, effective actions and programmatic proposals of the PNSPI, allowing a new look at the health needs of the elderly population