Prevenir ou remediar? atitudes dos profissionais de saúde frente à profilaxia pré exposição ao HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Rates of new HIV infections remain high around the world, need to create new prevention strategies. Currently, antiretrovirals (ARV) are used as treatment, in the strategy of Testing and offer Treatment, such as prophylaxis after exposure to HIV and more recently as prophylaxis Pre- Exposure (PrEP) indicated for key populations. The latter, despite the has raised questions. Whereas the implementation and PrEP is dependent on prescribing by health professionals, this study had to objective to analyze the attitudes of health professionals about the prescription and Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). It was a crosssectional study, exploratory and descriptive, of quantitative and qualitative character. The sample consisted of 68 health professionals. A sociodemographic and professional questionnaire was used to in order to characterize the participants, and then individual interviews were conducted, according to the procedure of Evocation-Enunciation-Inquiry. The participants were addressed in specialized AIDS services, as well as a scientific event HIV / AIDS in João Pessoa / PB. The quantitative data were analyzed using of descriptive statistics, while qualitative ones through content analysis. The majority of the participants were female (66.2%); With a mean age of 41 years (SD = 11.3); 35.3% were nurses and 20.6% were psychologists; With average working time in services of 9.5 years (SD = 6.5). The most frequent locus of action was the specialized service (SAE) (33.8%), followed by the Testing and Counseling Center (CTA) (23.5%) and management (19.1%). Concerning the intention to prescribe PrEP, 45.8% of the sample presented positive intention; 29.2% presented negative intention and 25% placed themselves in a position of conditional intention. On the other hand, the analysis of the interviews showed the presence of two thematic classes: The first one entitled "Beliefs about PrEP" consists of six categories of analysis (1-key group, 2-risk behavior, 3-Prevention instrument, 4-Rights , 5-Biomedical Paradigm, 6-consequences of PrEP), and the second "Implementation of PrEP in Health Services" composed of three categories (1-Qualification, 2-Organization, 3-Strategies for implementation). Given the data collected, it was verified that, although some of the participating professionals stated their intention to prescribe PrEP, most or have negative intention or still have doubts about the beneficial effects of this strategy, making them reticent to its prescription and use By key groups. Such data become worrisome in view of the implementation of the prevention policy in the country is planned for the current year. In this sense, vertical actions are taken in decision-making and implementation of prevention policies, where the perception of health professionals working in HIV /AIDS services is not considered, which may impair their effectiveness.