A enfermagem na atenção primária à saúde: do "susto" à reflexão das práticas na pandemia

Abstract

This work proposes to analyze the experiences and practices of nurses who work in Primary Health Care (PHC) in fight agains the Covid­19 Pandemic. This is an exploratory descriptive study with a qualitative approach. Interviews were conducted with 12 nurses working in PHC in two adjacent intermediate municipalities in a state in the southern region of Brazil, between October 2020 and February 2021. The data were organized and analyzed according to Bardin's content analysis. Thus, a category emerged: Nursing Experiences and Practices in facing the Covid­19 Pandemic. From it, four subcategories were broken down, namely: 1) Fear and Insecurity in the face of the unknown; 2) Reflections on life and the profession; 3) Nurses' practices in the COVID­19 Pandemic; 4) Teamwork as an enhancer of care practices. The profile of professionals is 91.7% female, mostly aged between 31 and 40 years old, with an average of 11 to 15 years of training, and all of them have at least one specialization focused on the area of expertise. It was identified that professional nurses experienced profound changes in their professional practices, generating work overload, uncertainties, fears and anxieties, but that even with the negative experiences of living a Pandemic, it was possible to reflect on the nurse's performance and how these are essential for the quality of public health care in Brazil. The changes in the performance scenarios and work processes had an impact on nurses' professional and personal lives. Since the Covid­19 Pandemic, health care in Basic Units has been reorganized with new access flows, being restructured to meet the new demands for respiratory symptoms. It is possible to observe the concern of professionals with the bond, integrality and longitudinality of care with users of the Unified Health System. It is also noteworthy, the difficulty of nurses with the use of Personal Protective Equipment, especially in the face of discomfort and in the vestment and deparmentation. However, despite the risks and challenges faced, the PHC nurses reflected on how much the Pandemic changed the health care processes and at the same time served as an enhancer for teamwork, the importance of unity in the care provided.