Os Centros de Especialidades Odontológicas como suporte da atenção básica: uma avaliação na perspectiva da integralidade

The public dental services in Brazil were limited, practically, to the basic care, so that the specialized services acted, up to 2002, no more than 3,5% of the total of clinical procedures. That lower offer reveals the difficulty of continuity of the attention, that is, the comprehensiveness in the assistance, particulary, the reference and counter-reference system. Brasil Sorridente search to supply those needs when proposing Speciality Dental's Centers(CEOs Centros de Especialidades Odontológicas, Brazil) to compose the services of average complexity. In 2005, Ministry of Health enabled the three CEOs of Natal, located in the North II, East and West Sanitary Districts. This investigation evaluated the implantation of these CEOs, as support of the family health care teams, in the perspective of organization of the services in assistencial nets in Natal/RN. It was a study of evaluation, with qualitative approach and some quantitative data as contribution. Dentists, users and managers were interviewed to identify and to understand their perceptions, relationships and experiences in the daily of the services. The conceptual base that orientated the investigation was the principle of comprehensiveness, in its operational sense of the hierarchization in health attention levels. The collection of data was done with documental research, direct observation and semi-structured interview. The analysis was accomplished by triangulation of the extracted content from the used techniques and sources of interviewed groups depositions, looking for theoretical-conceptual support in specific bibliography. The results pointed aspects that go away from the comprehensiveness like: low resolution of problems in the basic net; little valorization of the space in the health units; traditional models of access to health services, insufficient offer for some specialties, compromising the reference and counter-reference system; practices centered in procedures in the CEO; bureaucratic directions from basic care to the specialized service; disintegrated and disjointed system among levels of attention; disrespect to the municipal protocol. On the other hand, there is an approach of compreensiveness in situations like: increase of the access and covering in the Family Health Strategy (ESF Estratégia Saúde da Família, Brazil); larger approach between professional and user; tendency to the quantitative and qualitative growth of specialized actions; punctual initiatives of relationships among levels; existence of protocol to guide professionals

Centros de especialidades odontológicas: avaliação da atenção de média complexidade na rede pública da Grande Natal

The Specialized Dental Care Centers (CEO) were developed to provide specialized dental care to the population, given the accumulated needs of health since the past. They must operate as units of reference for the Oral Health Team of the Primary Care, complementing the dental procedures performed at this level of attention. This study aims to assess the performance of CEOs of the Grande Natal Health Region as a strategy of Secondary Care consolidation in oral health through users, dentists and managers. For this to try to identify factors about access, hosting and satisfaction with the service, the actions developed in these centers, integration between the CEOs and the Basic Health Units (UBS), considering the reference and counter reference. Data were collected through semi-structured interview, conducted in four CEOs, among 253 users, 31 dentists and 4 managers. It was submitted to descriptive statistical analysis and to content analysis by software ALCESTE 4.5. The results revealed that the specialties of prosthesis, endodontics and surgery were the most sought by 38.2%, 23.7% and 21.7% of respondents, respectively. It was noticed that among users aged 18 to 30 years-old the greatest demand is for the specialty of endodontics (44.4%) and over 50 years for prosthesis (76.4%). There is a weakness in the reference and counter reference between UBS and CEO, because part of users goes directly to the centers without going before to the Primary Care and the majority does not want to return to the dentist of Health Unit. Satisfaction with care was reported by 90.9% of users, because they resolved the problems needed and were welcomed by the team. But the delay in care was the main factor for not satisfaction. For most dentists, some users could solve their problems completely in Primary Care, which shows the existence of unnecessary referrals to the CEOs, however they consider the existence of limiting factors in UBS that compromise the service. Most dentists revealed that some users do not get to CEOs with the basic dental treatment done, and some of them do not counter reference users. It can be concluded that the studied CEOs are being resolutive for those who access them, offering necessary care for the population, and if they don t account with this service, will encounter obstacles to resolution of problems, ranging seek care service in particular, in another public sector, or even giving up treatment. However, it is perceived the need of professionals training to understand the importance of the reference and counter reference, to that they can better serve and guide users. It is also important that cities offer better conditions to UBS and CEOs, so they can work together, with complementary actions of oral health, seeking full care, aiming for better resolution to the users' health problems

A incorporação da saúde bucal no programa saúde da família do Rio Grande do Norte: investigando a possibilidade de conversão do modelo assistencial

The Health Family Program (HFP) was founded in the 1990s with the objective of changing the health care model through a restructuring of primary care. Oral health was officially incorporated into HFP mainly through the efforts of dental professionals, and was seen as a way to break from oral health care models based on curative, technical biological and inequity methods. Despite the fast expansion of HFP oral health teams, it is essential to ask if changes are really occurring in the oral health model of municipalities. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the incorporation of oral health teams into the Health Family Program by analyzing the factors that may interfere positively or negatively in the implementation of this strategy and consequently in the process of changing oral health care models in the National Health System in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This evaluation involves three dimensions: access, work organization and strategies of planning. For this purpose,19 municipalities, geographically distributed according to Regional Public Health Units (RPHU), were randomly selected. The data collection instruments used were: structured interview of supervisors and dentists, structured observation, documental research and data from national health data banks. It was possible to identify critical points that may be impeding the implementation of oral health into HFP, such as, low incomes, no legal employment contract, difficulty in referring patients for high-complexity procedures, in developing intersectoral actions and program strategies such as epidemiologic diagnosis and evaluation of the new actions. The majority of municipalities showed little or no improvement in oral health care after incorporating the new model into HFP. All of them had failures in most of the aspects mentioned above. Furthermore, these municipalities are similar in other areas, such as low educational levels in children from 7 to 14 years of age, high child mortality rates and wide social inequalities. On the other hand, the five municipalities that had improved oral health, according to the categories analyzed, offered better living conditions to the population, with higher life expectancy, low infant mortality rates, per capita income among the highest in the state as well as high Human Development Index (HDI) means. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that public policies that include aspects beyond the health sector are decisive for a real change in health care models

Avaliação longitudinal do impacto da saúde bucal na estratégia saúde da família em Natal

As a result of the financial incentive provided by the GM / MS 1.444, since 2000, Brazil has experienced a substantial increase in the number of oral health services at the Family Health Strategy. There is, however, evidence that these teams have produced qualitatively different experiences which do not translate necessarily into improved quality of life and health. Thus, evaluative research of great importance. This study aims to assess the impact of the Family Health Strategy in oral health in a longitudinal perspective natalense the years 2006 and 2009. This is an intervention study whose design is a community trial in parallel, nearly randomized. The sample consisted of census tracts covered by oral health teams in the Family Health and the Traditional Model (Basic Health Units and non-FHS Program of Community Health Agents and areas not covered.) The sample was determined by drawing ten census tracts to form the experimental group and ten other sectors for the control group by pairing intentional based on socio-economic and geographic. To check the net effect of the intervention was performed multivariate analysis by Poisson regression. As a result of cross-sectional analysis of year 2009, it was found that the effects of the ESF in Natal were satisfactory only for the variables of injuries and for other purposes without and with negative impact on stock coverage reclaimers. However, the longitudinal analysis revealed that the ESB / ESF improved their performance in dealing with grievances, access and coverage of the type of actions and this fact is independent of age, sex and social and economic conditions. In other employees' words are related to the presence of the Family Health Strategy in the region. However it does not say that both models under study (the Family Health Strategy Model and Traditional) are different in terms of performance and it is pertinent to reflect on the need for further development of evaluation studies that use other approaches able to clarify the dynamics of the process whose results can come to the knowledge of the actors responsible for leading the ESF and encourage them to incorporate the assessment in their routine

Impacto do Programa de Saúde da Família sobre indicadores de saúde bucal na população de Natal -RN

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the Family Health Program (FHP) on a number of oral health indicators in the population of Natal, Brazil. The study is characterized as a quasi-random community intervention trial. The intervention is represented by the implementation of an Oral Health Team (OHT) in the FHP prior to the study. A total of 15 sectors covered by the FHP with OHT were randomly drawn and paired with another 15 sectors, based on socioeconomic criteria, not covered by the teams. A few sectors were lost over the course of the study, resulting in a final number of 22 sectors, 11 covered and 11 not covered. We divided the non-covered areas into two conditions, one in which we considered areas that had some type of assistance program such as the Community Agents Program (CAP), FHP without OHT, BHU (Basic Health Unit) or no assistance, and the other, in which we considered areas that had only BHU or no assistance. Community Health Agents (CHAs) and Dental Office Assistants (DOAs) applied a questionnaire-interview to the most qualified individual of the household and the data obtained per household were transformed into the individual data of 7186 persons. The results show no statistical difference between the oral health outcomes analyzed in the areas covered by OHT in the FHP and in non-covered areas that have some type of assistance program, with a number of indicators showing better conditions in the non-covered areas. When we considered the association between covered and non-covered areas under the second condition, we found a statistical difference in the coverage indicators. Better conditions were found in covered areas for indicators such as I have not been to the dentist in the last year with p < 0.001 and OR of 1.64 and I had no access to dental care with p < 0.001 and OR of 2.22. However, the results show no impact of FHP with OHT on preventive action indicators under both non-covered conditions. This can be clearly seen when we analyze the toothache variable, which showed no significant difference between covered and non-covered areas. This variable is one of the most sensitive when assessing oral health programs, with p of 0.430 under condition 1 and p of 0.038 under condition 2, with CI = 0.70-0.90. In the analysis of health indicators in children where the proportion of deaths in children under age 1, the rate of hospitalization for ARI (Acute Respiratory Infections) in those under age 5 and the proportion of individuals born underweight were considered, a better condition was found in all the outcomes for areas with FHP. Therefore, we can conclude that oral health in the FHP has little effect on oral health indicators, even though the strategy improves the general health conditions of the population, as, for example child health

Nervos: rede de discursos e práticas de cuidado na atenção básica no município de Natal/RN

The Primary Health Care and one of its main strategies, the Family Health Strategy (ESF), are framed as the gateway to the Public Health System (SUS). Thus, most of the incident and prevalent health problems in the population attended should be solved at this level of care, including psychological suffering, and the so-called complaint of nerves. Nerves and nervous denote a complexity that is not always well comprehended by health workers, in such a way that the care to this kind of problem is usually inadequate. In this line of thought, the general objective of this study is to analyze the network of discourses and the care to the psychological suffering, expressed as nerves, in SUS daily Primary Health Care. Besides and more specifically, it aims at identifying the principles and guidelines of the Primary Health Care in mental health; to investigate health workers positioning before psychological suffering and complaints of nerves, and also analyze different actions and practices of care carried out in different Health Units towards complaints like nerves. Institutional Ethnography was the theoreticalmethodological perspective adopted for the work. This approach seeks to understand and analyze the institutional relationships in a particular context considering sociostructural influences and power relations, as well as daily discourses and practices. Based on interviews with health professionals, informal conversations and observations in six Health Units with ESF teams from different sanitary districts in Natal/RN, it was possible to check that the index of complaint of nerves is high. The referral to psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as the prescription of psychotropic drugs appear as the most common intervention at this level of care. In general, the participants complain that they have poor specialized knowledge about the theme of mental health. They face the problem of bad work conditions and the lack of institutional support, which make actions of illnesses prevention and health promotion even more difficult. Besides, there are different ongoing practices such as meetings for hypertensive and aged people, walk, visit, round-table discussions and community therapy. However, not all of these actions are aimed at the care of psychological suffering. It is observed that the Matrix Support, which is a methodological strategy of supervision and follow up forcases of mental health, hasn t been totally implemented in the municipal system, although it is a tool that has been used by psychologists in some Health Units in the city. It was also verified that the health care practices to the problem of nerves strongly depend on the professional s commitment with the PSF guidelines and on mental health policies, in addition to continued support, when available, from other professional who works as matrix supporter

A ação do psicólogo na assistência social: interiorização da profissão e combate a pobreza

A pobreza, como uma das manifestações da questão social , é elemento constitutivo do padrão de desenvolvimento capitalista, extremamente desigual, em que convivem acumulação e miséria. Nas últimas décadas, sob a égide do ideário neoliberal, verifica-se um incremento em políticas de combate à pobreza no Brasil, de caráter focalizado e compensatório, tanto por meio de ações diretas de transferência de renda, quanto pelo fortalecimento de serviços e programas voltados às populações pobres, com a estruturação do Sistema Único de Assistência Social, hierarquizado em Proteção Social Básica e Especial. A participação do psicólogo nas equipes profissionais do CRAS constitui um importante elemento para a discussão da inserção desse profissional no campo das políticas sociais no Brasil, considerando os limites estruturais postos pelo caráter compensatório dessas políticas, e a construção de estratégias que possam resultar em uma mudança efetiva nas condições de vida das camadas mais pobres da sociedade. Aliado a isso, por meio do ingresso na política de assistência social, um número significativo de profissionais psicólogos passa a atuar em cidades pequenas e médias, fora dos tradicionais centros urbanos, constituindo um movimento de interiorização da profissão . O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar a ação profissional do psicólogo na assistência social no contexto nas políticas de combate à pobreza em municípios do interior do Rio Grande do Norte. Realizou-se entrevistas semiestruturadas com psicólogos atuantes nos CRAS de 17 municípios de pequeno e médio porte do estado. As informações foram sistematizadas com auxílio do software QDA Miner v. 3.2. A perspectiva defendida neste trabalho refere-se à funcionalidade das práticas psicológicas no contexto das políticas de combate à pobreza brasileiras na atualidade, ao reforçar os ideais neoliberais de naturalização da questão social e responsabilização dos indivíduos pela sua condição social, além de, em grande parte, desconsiderar as particularidades e singularidades que marcam os territórios de ação. Todavia, é possível depreender alguns modos de ação profissional que estão na contramão dos mais frequentemente encontrados nesse campo. Esses modos se revelam no cotidiano do CRAS como formas diferentes de compreensão do saber fazer profissional, resultados de um posicionamento político e de uma formação profissional que buscam romper com o tradicionalismo e conservadorismo da Psicologia e do campo da assistência social

Saúde mental na estratégia saúde da família: notas cartográficas sobre processos de trabalho em saúde

This study aims to map the working process in the health area starting from the meeting between the family and health teams and mental trouble carriers./MTC. The area of research was the Family Health Unit of Ozeas Sampaio, which is located in the county of Teresina-PI. As regard to the methodology procedure, we used a semi-structured interview timetable, aimed to detail the care practices, admittance and diagnostics that those teams realize with their users. Three teams of eleven workers each were interviewed. There was a doctor, a nurse and two health community agents in each team. The other tools we used were a camp logbook, in which we wrote down some informal dialogs, daily observations and feelings of the unit, and also the accompaniment of the staffs in house calls as well as the weekly meetings in the unit. Those meetings allowed us the construction of two analytic axes: 1) description of the establishment (Family Health Unit) of the organization, (municipal foundation of health and the service network), and the institutions and practice of health. 2) Analysis of the meetings between the worker and the user of Mental Trouble Carriers. In the first axis, we verified the repetition of the working logic focused on jobs in the hospital with the maintenance of the hierarchical relations between worker and the work processes which dissociate management and watchfulness in health care. We identified the lack of physical structure, the lack of self-confidence of the worker in the attention of the mental health care. At the second axis, we assess that the meetings, at the Family Health Unit (FHU) or at the dwelling of the users cause nuisance, discomfort and anxiety to the workers because they deal with issues that go beyond what is named as being the health order such as life stories, family conflicts, unemployment, hunger, sexual and psychological violence. As a matter of fact, they involve difficulties for having new relationships, reception and responsibility for this request

A psicologia e o programa de saúde da família :novas possibilidades, velhos dogmas?

The model of attention to health has been suffering alterations due to the difficulty faced to put into practice its universal, democratic and institutional layout. Since the movement of Sanitary Reform, which focused in the demands of a new health context and the process of work in the area of health, one seeks uninterruptedly, to find a way which leads to the execution of the principles of SUS. Despite having tried, the model of Sanitary Vigilance centered within the work of a multi-professional team has shown fragmentation and little adequacy to the necessity of health in the population. Whilst inserting himself in the field of health, the psychology professional has taken with him his clinic way of attending to individuals being one more in the team to act in a de-contextualised and little critical way. In virtue of this framework, the Ministry of Health invests in the Family Health Program as a new guide in the health system, restructuring the basic attention at a new logic of action. In this way, the municipality of Natal-RN implants, in the year 2002, the PSF in the Northern Sanitary District, a context in which professional teams are created where there is not an inclusion of a psychologist. Consequently, this professional is excluded of his work space in the previous Basic Unities of Health. This piece of work constitutes in the investigation of the implementation and instrumentalization of the Northern Sanitary District PSF of Natal-RN, having as its objective to analyze the implications of this execution for the structuring of the health network services and more specifically the alterations that this implementation could be making to the practice of the Psychology Professionals, emphasizing its advances, obstacles and limitations. To make this work feasible it was necessary to search for data and information from the implementation and execution of the PSF in the DSN, carrying interviews from a semi-structured guide, with 21 institutional actors (members of the team, coordinators and directors of the unities and psychologists)

A atuação do psicólogo no contexto das referências ambulatoriais em saúde mental de Aracaju - SE

Psychologists‟ insertion in mental healthcare ambulatory clinics occurred during the decade of 1980, in the context of the claims disseminated by sanitary and psychiatric reforms, of the formation of minimum mental healthcare teams and of the retraction of the private clinic. Historically, this migration had been accompanied by the importation of practices traditionally applied at the clinics. Furthermore, the lack of clear guidelines from the Health Ministery occasioned the opening of ambulatory clinics with diversified structures at each city. The objective of this dissertation was to study the practices of psychologists at mental healthcare ambulatory references at Aracaju-SE. Were interviewed psychologists of these services and managers of the municipal health secretary using a semi-structured interview guideline, in addition to the analysis of management reports. It was observed that the mental healthcare references had experienced substantial changes referred to its structures and operation, leading to a present framework of expansion and readjustment. It was realized that there is an effort by the psychologists to maintain individual and group assistance, using adjustments in the frequency of the sessions and in the focus of the activities. Besides the progresses, the relation with the psychiatrist still works basically through the medical record, blocking advances on joint discussions of the cases. Some advances toward the amplified clinic are notable, like the overcoming of the isolated usage of psychiatric diagnostic and the replacement of the line‟ criterion by the urgency one. Sheltering had become an interesting strategy on flux ordination, however the mismatch between offer and demand seems to be a matter which extrapolates the psychologists‟ sphere at the references. For this reason the narrow of the relation with family healthcare centers seems to be the major challenge to be faced by psychologists at mental healthcare ambulatory references

Atenção precoce do câncer de mama :um olhar sobre o cotidiano institucional de uma unidade de saúde de Natal

Breast cancer has been considered a grave global public health problem due to its increase in incidence, in women s mortality and in the amount of financial resources spent on the therapeutic interventions used in the treatment of this neoplasia. However, this scenario presents some variations. In developing countries, the incidence of breast cancer is increasing but, on the other hand, the mortality is declining among patients because of public health actions toward early diagnostic that also result in cure of patients and decreasing levels of physical and psychosocial stress. In Brazil, we face of both the increasing number of breast cancer incidence and number of mortalities. Almost always the reason for that is a delayed detection that will provide a late diagnostic. The early detection of breast cancer has been studied in several researches. Some of them are concerned with women s experiences. Despite that, there is a lack of researches on dynamic comprehension of early attention to breast cancer from the health professionals points of view. The present research was carried out at the Unidade Mista de Felipe Camarão (UMFC) and it was conducted with 11 professionals who work in the Family Health Program (PSF). The aim was to understand how early diagnostic and attention to breast cancer is being planned, discussed and accomplished by health professionals in their day-to-day actions. Semi-structure interviews were held individually with each professional, in a way that they could feel free to express their ideas about several issues. All the information from these interviews was analyzed and discussed using an Institutional Ethnographic approach. It was observed that the actions of health professionals working with early detection of breast cancer does not take place in a vacuum; they occur within institutional, relational and social ways. This interdependence influences their actions and points of view on the theme

Mulheres em situação de violência e atenção em saúde mental: um estudo no município de Natal (RN)

The present study aims to meet the attention given to women with mental health needs in specialized services for the fight against violence against women, as well as psychosocial care network in the municipality of NatalRN. It is a qualitative research characterized as research-intervention that took place in the year 2011. The study started in the Centre of Reference in which individual semi-structured interviews were carried out directed to the coaching staff and manager, in order to know the care offered in relation to the aforementioned clientele. From the Reference Centre were identified through analysis of registration records, the routes traversed by users through the network of psychosocial care and hospital network. After the identification of the same were visited two day-care Centers, two psychiatric hospitals, a basic health Unit and the local shelter. In these organizations was investigated the reception and procedures offered to users in situations of violence, the knowledge of policies for women and the coordination with the attention to women, through interviews with semi-structured individual scripts directed to professionals. The interviews were analyzed taking as starting point the theoretical framework of French Institutional Analysis, which includes the assumption of events analysers for the critical reading of dimensions introduced in the practices of care of the teams that took part in the study. The survey results revealed difficulties on the part of the same host of users with this profile, both in the face of violence as services in mental health services. This fact led to the lack of support under the guarantee of their rights, ceasing the possibilities of confronting the situations of violence, as well as in the context of mental health care

O fazer do psicólogo no núcleo de apoio à saúde da família

The Brazilian Ministry of Health regulated in 2008 the Family Health Support Nucleus (FHSN) as a device for support and complementarity to the Family Health Strategy. The FHSN, through the matrix support, potentiates the Family Health teams on dealing with a great variety of demands and activities that are under their responsibilities. It is structured in teams of professionals from various health specialties, among which is the mental health. In preliminary studies we noticed that the psychologists have been the main representatives of mental health professionals at the FHSN from Rio Grande do Norte (RN-Brazil). On this scenario, this study intends to problematize the professional practice of the psychologists who work at the FHSN teams in RN, regarding how their work is done, discussing it under the perspective of collective health and the directions for the basic health care on Brazilian s health system. Still as a goal, in more specific ways: identify the forms of professional insertion of the psychologists in this field; characterize the work done by the psychologist at the FHSN (developed activities); and produce an analysis of the characteristics and limits of those actions, from theoretical and methodological references based on Marxian ontology. Were performed semistructured interviews with psychologists working in the oldest FHSN teams form RN. We conducted the analysis of the material following the blocks of information: determinants of the psychologist entry at the services, training for current practice; operation of FHSN; activities performed by FHSN team and the psychologist; joint actions; and limits of psychology practice in the FHSN. An important result, we observed the little articulation of practicing between the psychology and other professionals and teams, further indicating the prevalence of the traditional medical model (individual and outpatient) as guidance of their performance instead of the matrix logic that is the foundation of the proposed action for the FHSN. We also emphasize the potential of psychologists actions at the FHSN on contributing to the achievement of comprehensive care

Impacto do trabalho em profissionais de Saúde Mental de serviços de saúde do município de Mossoró-RN, 2012

The Psychiatric Reform has brought profound changes in assistance to people affected by mental disorders and behavior. In this context, mental health workers have played decisive roles of great impact, acting driving the process. Objective: To evaluate the impact felt by working professionals, because of the daily work with people who have psychiatric disorders. Methodology: This is a search field, a quantitative approach, sectional, descriptive and applied. Data collection occurred through the Assessment Scale Impact of Working in Mental Health Services (IMPACT-BR) applied to mental health researchers city Mossoró - RN. Results: Participants in this study 87 professionals, mostly female married, which took charge of higher education, working on a single service, working in the area for more than six years, aged between 25 and 64 years. There were a low effect of overloading the professionals surveyed. Discussion: Our results corroborate findings in other surveys conducted previously, not identifying large impact load at work among professionals of mental health teams studied. Subscales studied the highest score was observed in measuring the impact of work on team functioning. It was observed that the greater age and duration of action, reduced the emotional impact at work, suggesting that the experience enhances safety in decisions made and the possibility of greater control over the demands of work. Final Thoughts: The work presented showed that the interactive relationships between professionals and users are not the causes of greatest impact in the workplace, although it revealed overload in relation to specific aspects such as: fear of being assaulted by a patient and the feeling of physical exhaustion the end of the workday. Further investigations should be conducted on this topic in order to contribute to the implementation of psychiatric reform proposed by advances both in terms of assistance to individuals and the quality of life in the work of the professionals involved

Práticas educativas e integralidade na saúde da família: um estudo etnográfico

Primary Health Care, especially in the family health strategy, it is expected that the joint assistance and actions of health promotion. The Ministry of health (BRAZIL, 2007) defines health education as an eyeshadow strategy of prevention and health promotion, based on reflective practices, which allow the user to their condition of historical, social and political subject, under the vision of an expanded clinic on the part of health professionals. In this sense, there are guidelines for it professionals to develop educational activities and that they can interfere in the health/disease process of the population, with a view to the development of autonomy of the subject. This research had as objective to understand in the light of the integrality of the care, as is the production of health education practices, within the framework of the family health strategy from ethnographic study in a family health unit (USF). The location of the research was the unit of USF Felipe Camarão II in West Health District, in the city of Natal, RN, Brazil, selected from preliminary mapping of educational practices deployed in units of health of the family of this municipality, based on criteria such as time-to-deployment of USF and sustainability of existing actions. Immersion in the field consisted of participant observation with journaling, held during the period of August 2012 to January 2013, in which she accompanied team work processes in clinical-welfare actions on the USF, in households and in educational activities of group character. The results presented in ethnographic description were analyzed based on the axes proposed by Ayres (2009) for identification of integrality in health practices:the axis of the needs; the axis of the purposes; the joint axis; and the axis of the interactionsThe evidence described from observation point the presence of each axle up health education practices developed by the teams, even incipient form, namely: articulation and appreciation of knowledge and practices of popular culture with local initiatives (Pastoril do Peixe Boi Encantado, Auto de Natal e Grupo Terapia e Arte); Clinical integration with health promotion actions and coordination of multidisciplinary knowledge, with professional-user link (course for pregnant women). However, a few challenges were identified to be faced in order to move forward in these practices in integral care: the need to break with the fragmentation of actions; strengthening teamwork; need for greater sustainability policy of collective actions; intersectoral work aimed at a better role of the State in the face of the health-disease process, adding to the action of individuals.The analysis produced from observation of the processes experienced indicates the need for a better recognition of local managers that actions similar to those that occur in the USF Felipe Camarão II enable advances in completeness as allows inclusion of actors involved in the processes of health work, and stimulate participation and shared responsibility in the fight for health-disease situations