Abstract

IGLESIAS, Alexandra; GUERRA, Bárbara Costa; SOARES, Josélia  and  ARAUJO, Maristela Dalbello. Analysis of the actions of health promotion conducted by psychologists in Vitória (ES). Psicol. teor. prat. [online]. 2009, vol.11, n.1, pp.110-127. ISSN 1516-3687.

The health promotion practices include focused actions on lifestyle changes and include activities devoted to the collective and to physical, social, political, economical and cultural environment. They are mainly taken in the primary care units (PCU), and psychologists usually participate in these actions. The research was concentrated in the analysis of which promoting activities are developed by psychologists on the PCU’s in two cities of the Espírito Santo state, Brazil. Eight psychologists and forty eight PCU directors were interviewed. The results showed no differentiations on the concept among health promotion and diseases prevention actions. They also showed that, in one of the cities, PCU’ psychologists have been acting on the collective and promoting health practices, which points to a behavioral change in these professionals’ duties that used to be limited to individual clinic attending. The emphasis of the municipality on proposals of collective actions in health appear to be important to boost this change.

Keywords : Health promotion; Diseases prevention; Public health; Primary health care; Psychologists.

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