O processo de trabalho em saúde do NASF na pandemia da covid-19: mudanças e repercussões

Abstract

This study approached health professionals from the Expanded Family Health and Primary Care Center (NASF, in Portuguese). The inclusion of NASF in the Unified Health System (SUS, in Portuguese) with these teams’ interprofessional cooperation expanded the health interventions provided in PHC. This study approached the workflow at NASF in Recife, Brazil, during the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequences of this context, observing workflow components (objectives or goals; means and conditions; object; agent or subject). This study aimed to investigate the changes and consequences in the workflow at NASF-Recife during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive research with a convenience sample, using Bardin’s content analysis as the theoretical epistemological framework. The analysis indicated the following three main categories related to the NASF-Recife professionals’ workflow: a) the care provided to users, b) the COVID-19 pandemic and the workflow at NASF-Recife; and c) the consequences of the pandemic on the NASFRecife workers and future perspectives. The results point to precautions taken to ensure biosafety, with consequences to the operationalization of care, the use of NASF to fight COVID-19, further precarious infrastructure, changes in how care is understood and managed, some canceled activities, while other ones were included, the Internet used as a tool to operationalize healthcare, and consequences to the health workflow and its components. This research found that fighting COVID-19 caused fatigue in a wide range of aspects of the workflow, as addressed and discussed in this dissertation. In conclusion, the experience of the professionals in this research during the pandemic revealed greater gaps in health infrastructure, organization, and management, which were already present before the pandemic. Such gaps must be revisited and changed concerning the extant workflow means and conditions and the expectations of these workers, given the new adversities and characteristics of a generation of professionals and the population who survived COVID-19.