Experiências de profissionais de saúde da rede pública que atuam na assistência da criança e adolescente obesa na cidade de São Paulo-SP

Abstract

Child and teenage obesity is a chronic, epidemic, high prevalence, multicausal and hard to approach disease, which involves multiple health professionals. Many researches show difficulties in facing the disease, but very few discourse on the experiences of the health professionals that work on the public service taking care of these youngsters, especially about the practices and challenges faced by them during the management of this disease in the different components of healthcare. This study aims to comprehend, through the perspective of the health professionals, how they perceive their practices and the respective challenges in the assistance to this public in the health system and in it¿s components of care. This is a qualitative research, conceived through semi structured interview with health professionals that act in SUS in the assistance of obese children and teenagers in two regions of São Paulo. The captation of the population was fulfilled by means of snowball indication, in such a way that it included diversity of professional formation and fields of actuation. To the final composition of the population, it was used the theoretical saturation criteria and the analytical path was guided by means of thematic content. The captation finished with 16 professionals, being 5 from the primary care, 4 from the secondary, 6 from the tertiary and one network manager. They revealed positive work relationships with the multiprofessional team of their respective level of care; the management of obesity in children and teenagers is complex and challenging because the health system presents problems and doesn¿t work in it¿s plenitude; regarding the awareness of the guidelines that cover obesity in this public, most of them declared not to have knowledge and pointed that their activities and practices are based on the norms of the institutions they work at; most didn¿t articulate well between the different components of healthcare, revealing reference/counter reference flow failures and gaps in the records due to the non integration of the patient's information about their health among the different levels of healthcare; the professionals didn¿t point differences between the attributions and competences of different levels of care. It was then concluded, from the practices and perceptions of these health professionals that act on the public network in the treatment of obese children and teenagers, that they face many adversities that, sometimes, interfere with their practices, resulting in services that may not reach the desired quality and articulation. There is a wide range of materials and instruments that guide the handling of obesity, but few are clear on the conducts and flows to be taken with obese children and teenagers as they are generic and don¿t consider the particularities of this public.