Social representations of health care by homeless people

Abstract

Objective: Identify and analyze the structure and content of the social representations of homeless people in relation to health care. Method: Qualitative study, based on the structural approach of the Theory of Social Representations, conducted with homeless people, linked to two institutional shelters. To produce the data, the free-association test was used. The resulting data was processed by two software and analyzed according to the theory above. Results: Seventy-two people participated in the study. The set of evocations from the four-quadrant chart refers to individual, social and cultural actions. The terms 'doctor', 'taking care of yourself ' and 'eating' composed the central core of the representation, indicating image-related and functional dimensions of the object investigated. The word cloud confirmed the centrality of the terms. Conclusion: The investigated group represents health care as a dynamic action, linked to the person and context, and is anchored in elements of the hygienist conception.