Projeto Amor à Vida: avaliando resultados junto aos profissionais de saúde, educação e assistência social no Município de Jaguaribe - CE

Abstract

We evaluated the results of the “Amor à Vida” Project in the city of Jaguaribe – Ceará, because it has been announced as an inductor for implanting the adolescent health policy, focusing on health promotion. Objectives: evaluate the results of the “Amor à Vida” Project with health, educaction and social assistance professionals, after eight years of implantation, observing if its practices show clearly the central health promotion principles; trace the profile of the professionals that participate on the project; investigate the professionals adhesion to the objectives and methodology purposed by the project and identify, among the professionals activities, the strategies adopted to articulate intersectorial actions. Scenery of the study: 02 middle schools, 03 basic health units and 01 psycho-social assistance center. The population of the study was: 14 teachers, 03 school administrators, 03 doctors, 03 nurses, 02 nurse auxiliaries and 01 social assistant. Data collection was made from June/2004 to June/2005, using free and participative observation, questionary and semi-structured interview. The dialectic approach was the chosen theoretical fundament. Among the subjects of the research, beyond the major number of women, most of the participants were catholic. Most of them are also undergraduated, showing interest and effort to take specialization courses related to their professional area. More than half of the professionals earned more than 3,3 Brazilian minimum salaries, existing a big difference between the salaries of the doctors and nurses; even being recognized that the nurses are responsible for the majority of the activities related to health promotion and prevention. We could see that the intersectorial actions, announced as the fundament of the project didn´t materialize consistently in the city. Just a minority of the health and social assistance professionals were capacitated about about the themes and the methodology of the Project, so that we observed: a lack of supervision and stimulation of the professionals, a lack of comprehension by the professionals and public administrators about intersectoriality as a fundamental strategy to build public policies and, particularly, in health promotion. The principles of life quality and social participation appeared isolated in the political-pedagogical projects of some schools and in some current activities of the investigated institutions. The bank focus adopted at school and curative or preventive focus on health attention are normative and inadequate strategies to achieve the goals of the evaluated project. We didn´t observe a meaningful difference between the practice of the professionals from the institutions that participate on the Project and from other institutions investigated. It was possible to conclude that the “Amor à Vida” Project is far from being inductor of health promotion and life quality practices for adolescents. The research brought up discussions about social participation and control in the schools, made suggestions to the public administrators and pointed to new and deep studies that should be developed with a larger number of cities.