Dor cronica em mulheres : uma reflexão sobre a clinica / Chronic pain among women : a clinical reflection

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Since 2001, at the summit of the health attention model rearrangement in the city of Campinas, there has come about a clinical improvement proposal valorizing the subject in her context besides the disease itself. This study suggests a reflection about the clinical practice in women undergoing chronic osteomuscular pain due to tendinitis, RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), back pain, and fibromyalgia, from the researcher?s activities as a physician in a public health care unit. The goal was to understand the meaning of pain to these women and to discuss how this knowledge would contribute to clinical improvement and expansion. The theoretical reference encompassed issues such as women insertion in the society and work, the Brazilian government ?Family Health Program?, the source of their pain and the types of clinical assessment. The methodology involved the utilization of a questionnaire, interviews, and the analysis of medical charts. Most patients enrolled in the study carry out occupational tasks that require daily physical strain or repetitive movements. This is the case of housekeepers, maids, sewing women, servants, kitchen helpers, appetizer (Brazilian snacks) makers, cafeteria attendants, all typical women occupations since they?re seen as an extension of household attributions. These women are also in charge of domestic chores and contribute or provide the family income. Disadvantages determined by the local gender culture, in particular the distribution of household responsibilities among men and women as to taking care of home and children and insertion in the working market seem to contribute to the appearance or manifestation of pain. However, although they have attributed the pain to professional and household chores, they have the feeling that pain means more than a simple physical problem, but it is related to sentimental issues and their personal life stories. The feelings disclosed were sadness, loneliness, anguish, despair, nervousness, irritation, depression, hopelessness, agitation, bad mood, failure, and anxiety. The open interviews detected or went deep into several issues that generated suffering which were linked to subjective aspects of each individual patient not noticed in previous traditional clinical appointments. They also demonstrated that pain quite often signalizes personal suffering or a cry for help and attention. Under the patients? view, such non-biological issues are in fact relevant and need to be taken into consideration by health professionals. Facing the fact that these issues were only revealed when women felt at ease to talk freely about themselves, the researcher agrees not only with the change in the traditional appointment dynamics, but also, and specially, with the need to follow-up the subject throughout her life, as well as her family, as preconized by the Family Heath Strategy, in particular the model proposed by Campos (2003), emphasizing the establishment of a bond and the adoption of an expanded clinical attention

ASSUNTO(S)

dor medicina familiar family practice pain

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados