“Todos buscamos a melhoria da saúde, mas trabalhamos isoladamente”: integração entre vigilância sanitária e atenção primária à saúde

Abstract

Integrity is the principle that determines the articulation between the services and actions of the Unified Health System (SUS). The integration between Health Surveillance (VISA) and Primary Health Care (PHC), through the promotion of health and health education, provides the most efficient identification of the sanitary risks of each territory. VISA is, however, traditionally isolated from other health actions. The objective of this study is to understand the integration between VISA and APS according to the perspective of the workers and managers who work in these nuclei in Fortaleza - CE. It is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach, carried out from January to November 2016. We selected workers and managers of VISA and APS who had at least one year of work in the respective nucleus. In addition, professionals with the greatest possible variation of length of service, place of work and occupied position were included. Saturation was used to define the closure of the data collection, which was performed through document reviews, participant observations and semi-structured interviews guided by scripts. With support in the thematic content analysis, the following categories were built: training for VISA and APS; Responsibilities of VISA and APS; Planning of VISA and PHC activities; Activities of VISA and APS; Integration between VISA and APS; Difficulties and facilities for integration between VISA and APS. Most of the 44 professionals interviewed are female and have specialization. The results show that some activities are developed in a shared way by VISA and PHC professionals, such as meetings on health conditions of health facilities. These activities, however, do not happen routinely and are not fully formalized. Interviewees consider that integration among the nuclei studied is important for improving the health of the population and suggests a number of other activities that can be developed in a shared way, such as health education for the population and investigation of products possibly causing adverse reactions. However, a number of factors have been identified that compromise integration among the studied groups, such as the lack of training in VISA, the lack of connectivity among workers, the lack of knowledge that VISA and APS have common attributions and an emphasis on the development of Supervision by VISA. In addition, workers in one nucleus do not know the professionals and activities belonging to the other nucleus. It is concluded that the integration of the VISA and PHC cores studied is not fully consolidated. The results point to the need for collective spaces where workers can get to know each other and take responsibility for the shared development of activities.