Groups in Basic Health Care: a typology by purpose based on the Basic Health Care Notebooks

Abstract

The development of collective activities constitutes an important element in the provision of Basic Health Care (BHC). From grouping formats such as waiting rooms, conversation circles and health campaign, to the use of group proposals, such practices are common to these spaces, being presented as activities to be carried out by BHC professionals, in a preventive, promoting and rehabilitative way by the National Basic Care Policy (PNAB). The objective of this work is to present a possibility of classifying groups by purpose in PC based on research using the Primary Care Notebooks (CAB) and theoretical documents on group proposals. This task was based on documentary research and Bardin’s Content Analysis of the 42 volumes of the CAB. It was possible to find nine purposes: pedagogical, therapeutic, psychotherapeutic, support, coexistence, income generation, operative, physical activities and rationalization of the work process. The CAB define a group field in which there is a preponderance of pedagogical formats to be indicated for conducting work with other purposes in the background. Moreover: the CAB offer a possibility of understanding and concreteness about possible group purposes, in addition to a theoretical and technical framework aligned with the purposes found.