Educação sanitária na atenção primária como base estruturante dos sistemas de saúde

Abstract

Sanitary education is one of the determinants and conditioners of health, as well as an important tool for valuing human life through self-knowledge and its harmonious integration into society. It is also a continuous action of professional nursing that allows to share knowledge and improve the population's health quality and can be developed in all spheres of the Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS (Unified Health System). This integrative review aimed to identify the actions, strategies and challenges of health education in primary care for the structuring of health systems in view of the reality of the overcrowding in hospitals, which theoretically have higher availablility, due to a high demand of situations that are not urgent or sensitive to primary care. The main categories of actions and strategies outlined in the studies were the actions of education in health and citizenship, the development and application of assessment tool of health care and insertion of new health professionals in primary care: dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists and psychologists. Regarding the challenges, they are related to to the categories of mismatch between levels of health care, recognition of social reality, disconnection between the professionals working in primary care, academic background, deficiency of physical structures or administrative procedures and verticalized educational practices. In this direction, there is the complexity of actions, strategies and challenges for the structuring of health systems, covering various areas of knowledge, and the involvement and coordination of different sectors and healthcare professionals is required in order to ensure improvements in people's life quality.