Representações sociais de cura de pessoas atingidas por hanseníase multibacilar após alta por cura no nordeste brasileiro

Abstract

A person who is cured on leprosy is considered a person who completes the Polychemotherapy (MDT) treatment plan, within the deadlines established by the Ministry of Health. Even after being cured, individuals may present with leprosy (HR) reactions and relapses. The inactivity of the bacillus as a parameter for discharge by cure is questioned since even with the inactive bacillus, physical and psychic sequelae remain causing suffering. Healing, or belief in it, is questioned in the literature and pointed out as relative. Analyzing the literature, we identified that the treatment and cure issue has not addressed the perception of people affected by leprosy on their own situation. Another emerging fact is that the Theory of Social Representations has been used in research on the social significance attributed to leprosy. So, we established as a research question: What are the Social Representations (RS) of healing in people affected by multibacillary leprosy who were discharged for cure? Thus, we have as general objective, smoothing the social representations of cure in people affected by multibacillary leprosy who were discharged for cure in a municipality in the Northeast of Brazil. The study was characterized as exploratory, descriptive, and qualitative, developed in Sobral/CE. Individuals of both sexes, older than 18 years old, living in the municipality of Sobral, with multibacillary form of leprosy, were discharged for 6 months or 1 year. The data collection took place through structured interview, recorded, later transcription and analysis through the Collective Subject Discourse (DSC). Ten people were interviewed, where it was found that the whole sample did not know how to define leprosy, or explain what the disease would be. As to why they had it, the explanations were diverse. None of the respondents pointed out that the disease would be caused by a bacterium, however, 30% (n = 3) stressed contact with other sick people as the cause of the transmission. The DSC denote that, compared to the present, life is different, it is no longer good and normal. Analyzing the Key Expressions (ECH) of confrontation: life before and after illness, "Life before leprosy was good" and "After illness, life is worse." The total ECH that describes each situation also tells us about the greater complexity of the association with each SR. For the Healing category there were 06 RS summarized in "People feel normal and equal to before disease", while for the category Absence of Healing there were 11 ECH related to aspects such as sequels, limitations and difficulties of adaptation to "new functionality". It is also observed that, in the absence of disability (grade 0), ECH was not observed in the absence of cure, while, with the increase of the degree of incapacity, ECH appeared related to the absence of cure. It is concluded that in individuals with leprosy reactions and degree of high disability were found, in most discourses, ECH that meant no cure. In addition, social representations of healing are complex, dynamic, and strongly associated with before and after the disease comparison, the former functioning as a reference for normal life.