Social constructionism in primary health care: An integrative review

Abstract

This study sets out to analyze scientific articles in order to investigate how researchers in the area of Social Constructionism define “health” in Primary Health Care. An integrative review of the literature was conducted along with a decision to concentrate on those works with narrative experiences and research studies. The database researched was the Brazilian Virtual Health Library, with experiences in the scope of Primary Health Care. The effectiveness of this step resulted in 12 articles. Data were analyzed and discussed based on the perspectives of social constructionism, which generated two central themes. They were: citizenship exercises – promoting health in collective spaces; health practices – overcoming the dichotomies and absolute truths. This study revealed the relevance of the notion of shared responsibility on meanings of health contained in the texts analyzed. The researchers claim that it is possible to expand health practices into collective action to facilitate ongoing dialogue between health users and workers. However, the dominance of biomedical discourse is criticized by the researchers, because that paradigm still promotes practices of care focused on illness.