Educação para a promoção da saúde no contexto da atenção primária

Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether the educational initiatives carried out in basic health units in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, follows the principles of health promotion. Methods: This descriptive study examined 33 educational health promotion initiatives to determine whether they were guided by five principles, used as categories of analysis: multicausality of the health-disease process, intersectoriality, social engagement, sustainability, and use of dialogic teaching methods (active participation of subjects in the learning process, planning the activity to generate new knowledge, and use of various teaching strategies). Structured observation was used for data collection. The frequency of each category was evaluated in each initiative. Results: Multicausality was the most frequent category observed (73.0%), and intersectoriality the least frequent (9.0%). Regarding the use of dialogic methods, 38.0% of the initiatives promoted the active engagement of subjects, 6.0% promoted knowledge generation, and 40.0% employed a variety of teaching strategies. Conclusions: Most educational initiatives were not actively oriented toward health promotion, understood as the strengthening of autonomy and self-management of health processes, social engagement, and employment of dialogic teaching approaches. However, some progress has been made moving away from hegemonic models of education in primary health care.