Education process assessment on harmful drug use with community health workers

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate changes related to the conceptions and proposed practices of community health workers (CHW) who participated in an educational process on primary health care actions aimed at people using drugs in a harmful way. The educational process involved participation and it was based on theoretical considerations of Collective Health, a field which regards drug use as a phenomenon with a social nature and proposes inter-sector policies and practices to deal with this issue. Data collection adopted a pre- and post-testing form with open questions, which were answered by 16 CHW. Data were analyzed with a view to check the homogeneity/heterogeneity of findings with regard to the categories of theoretical analysis that provided the educational process with a basis. The results were divided into: conceptions on drug users and determinants of use; and social policies and practices for health care involving drug use. By means of the assessment, we found out that the educational process exposed the contradiction between the prevailing moralistic discourses and the social reality within the territory where these CHW act. We conclude that there was a change of CHW with regard to their conception of drug user and the problems arising from drug use. The workers identified their practical limitations and the State responsibility related to public policies aimed at drug use. Assessing the educational process by means of a pre- and post-testing form showed to be useful to make up the analysis of participants’ discourse change.