Formação profissional do agente comunitário de saúde: uma revisão integrativa

Abstract

This work has as its theme the training of Community Health Agents, which represents an important actor in the Family Health Strategy, to play the role of liaison between the health team and the community attended, enabling the achievement of trust and bonding. The study consisted of an integrative literature review and sought to contribute to the debate about the process of formation of this professional, considering the breadth of its functions and the different strategies adopted for its formation. The aim was to analyze the knowledge already produced on the process of formation of the Community Health Agent in the Brazilian context. The methodology consisted of survey of publications conducted between the months of October and November 2011, in the databases LILACS and Scielo. The sample consisted of 15 articles and two dissertations and to collect the data we used a specific instrument for the study. The results showed that the journals that most published articles on the subject were health in general, especially collective health and interdisciplinary. The publications focus from the year 2007, with greater frequency distribution in the Southeast and had a qualitative approach as the main methodological design. Could be observed inefficiency in the process of formation of the ACS through some studies and at the same time the existence of positive experiences with introductory courses, training in the mold of continuing education and emancipation and the proposal of the standard curriculum offered in 2004 by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, in different locations. Through analysis of the articles can be seen that in what refers to the formation of the Community Health Agent, although the Ministry of Health set the main guidelines of this process, in practice this is still very diverse in the national context. We believe that regardless of the type of training that the ACS proposes to structure, either in form of technical training course or training through continued education, this training must be based on integrated curriculum, emphasizing the integration of teaching/service and theory/practice, using questionable methodology, which enables the action/reflection/action and respects the local context in which it operates. We conclude that it is fundamentally important to invest in the training process of the ACS, to make them able to handle multiple aspects covering the care of the population.