Mulher drogadita assistida no serviço especializado: interface entre gênero e integralidade da assistência em saúde

Abstract

The current study aimed to analyze the assistance provided to drug dependent women in specialized services according to the perspective of gender and health care comprehensiveness. It defends the following thesis: gender affects women accessibility to chemical dependency treatment, thus interfering with the principle of comprehensive care. This is a clinical qualitative research conducted in CAPSad, which belongs to the Third Regional Executive Secretariat in Fortaleza County - CE. Seventeen women who were undergoing treatment for psychoactive drugs abuse participated in the experiment. The number of participants was intentionally set, according to the data satisfaction criteria. It took five months to gather the data - from July to November 2013. They were collected by means of structured and non-participatory observations of the service dynamics, structured and semi-structured interviews, and operating groups. The study followed the data treatment and presentation model indicated by Turato for clinical and qualitative researches, namely: initial preparation of the material; pre-analysis; preparation of thematic categories and subcategories alluding to the intersection of comprehensiveness and gender perspectives in women health care. The following conceptual constructs were used in order to interpret the findings from the perspective of comprehensiveness: expanded concept of health, regionalization and hierarchicalization, inputs, human and financial resources for health, interdisciplinarity, therapeutic resources, management with participation of the public and workers, accessibility, welcoming, intersectionality, clinical supervision and clientele ascription. Authors such as Scott and Butler were adopted by the current study in order to interpret the findings from the perspective of gender, since such authors succinctly take under consideration the impact of this category on the different ways of living the body and its impact on the health-disease process. Thus, gender is understood as the social and cultural differences between men and women and the way these differences lead to power inequalities. The final presentation of the results was prepared in a descriptive way, by means of illustrative quotations of clippings from the speeches recorded during the interview, and by display of images from artistic productions developed in the operative group. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Ceará - UFC. The results show that the provided assistance is still strongly marked by the biomedical paradigm and that the therapeutic resources offered by the service were restricted to individual care (prescription of drugs); group care (therapeutic groups, therapeutic and expressive workshops); and care for the family. Professionals focused their activities on the service; they did not engage in community activities, staff meetings, general meetings, home visits; and did not develop preventive, interdisciplinary and intersectoral activities. The women had gender-related difficulties in accessing health services (CAPSad and less or more complex units), and in getting chemical dependency treatment, due mainly to social vulnerability and clinical peculiarities. It was found that, in the light of SUS’s principle of comprehensive care and of the Psychiatric Reform precepts, the care provided to chemically dependent women proved to be a distant reality from that observed and perceived in the current study.