Representations of elderly women and users of a health service: relationship between consumption of tranquillizers, gender and aging. / Representações de mulheres idosas usuárias de um serviço de saúde: relações entre consumo de calmantes, gênero e envelhecimento

AUTOR(ES)

Reginaldo Teixeira Mendonça

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2005

RESUMO

Benzodiazepine tranquillizers are widely consumed throughout Brazil and the world in general, mainly by women sixty or older. This consumption involves social, economic and cultural factors, with use influenced by reality of determined social groups. Aiming to analyze these questions, through qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were administered to eighteen elderly women belonging to popular classes, who had been using these medicines for one year or more. We observed that consumption patterns of tranquilizer use are constructed socially and this construction is dependant upon the length of time of use, access to health services, their social class, social definition about the gender in society and the aging process. The construction is also influenced by experiences and knowledge about medicines. The interviewees showed that they possessed autonomy and knowledge about tranquillizer use, feeling able to use, to recommend, to lend, or not, these medicines, in accordance with their conceptions. Therefore we are able to observe and analyze the interactions between several factors – socio-economic and cultural, gender, and aging – involved in the process of tranquillizer use.

ASSUNTO(S)

benzodiazepine tranquillizers gênero calmantes medicines benzodiazepínicos gender medicina popular aging envelhecimento folk medicine medicamentos

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