Work of nursing in primary health in Campinas, Brazil

In Brazil, in primary health practices, nurses have built and changed their tasks, broadening and diversifying their activities, according to demands from public health care policies. With the implementation of PSF (Family Health Program), there were changes in the city nurses’ work. This study aimed to grasp the way the city nurses perceived their jobs in the primary health system in Campinas, a city of the state São Paulo, Brazil. Theoretical references are related to the Process of Work in Health Systems, and nursing has been understood as a social practice. The analyzed data include the responses of 133 nurses (87%) to questions about their activities on a typical day at work. Two broader themes have emerged from the thematic analysis of the data, under the category “The Dimension of Caring”: Direct Caring and Management of Caring. The results have indicated a majority of individual assistance activities, which suggest a shift of focus in order to maintain their professional goal – caring for the biological sick body, as seen in: difficulty in naming the activities they perform, the use of several names to refer to the same activity, the identification of tasks according to the pathologies and procedures, and the use of varied words to refer to the user. We underline the importance of proper standardized terminology, as it is our intention to give support and visibility to the work performed by nurses nationally and internationally. We have considered the work of nurses in primary health as rich, diverse, and constantly changing. However, their activities, in general, have indicated a fragmented and procedure-centered focus in caring.
Key-words: Primary Health. Nursing in Public Health. Care Family Health.