O cuidado informal na saúde/doença no contexto da família: representações sociais de mães e crianças de uma comunidade

Abstract

lhe author intends to reveal the meaning that mothers and children attribute to health/diseasc and care; and also to get to know the situation of mothers and children in relation to health promoting care, protection against disease and the recovery of sick people; to identify the mother’s influence in the formation fo the child’s social representation in what concems health/disease and care. The work was developed starting from a qualitative approach having as its main focus the statements from both mothers and children who lived through and experienced the fact of feeling hcalthy, getting sick and to provide care for health/diseas in the daily routine of their lives. The statements were collected by the researcher in the school environment and in the households, a follows: free observation, participatory observation, and semi-struetured interview, in the period ranging from may 1994 to may 1995. The convergence of the statements, once thcy had been analised, led to the identification of some signigicant units which may provide the basis from health promoting actions at the Nursing Care Unit of the Family Development Center which is connected to the Pro-Rectory for Extension, of the Federal University of Ceara (UFC). As a theoretical and methodologicial referential use was made of SHUTZ’s Phenomenology of Social Rclations and Bardin’s Categorical and Thematic Analysis. lhe study consists of four stages: 1 - Unveiling of the daily world; 2 - Perception of the incaning of health/disease and care; 3 - Defining situation with relation to care in health/disease; 4 - Iníluences received in the guidance for care in health/disease. Within the family context the findings have shown that the mother’s perception conceming health/disease and care originates from the mother’s view of the world and of the social interactions established with other people. Whereas the child’s perception about these depends on the conception of persons who are close and significant to the child such as the teacher and the mother. The child receives guidence and Stores this information at a cognitive levei, however in practice lhe child selects what must be followed in accordande with the child’s own interests. The findings have also unders cored that the difmition ofthe situation related to care in health/disease sufíers the influence of personal, inter-personal and situational determinants.