[The social representations of COVID-19 by users of primary health care services in context of the pandemic].

Abstract

The scope of this study was to identify and analyze the social representations of Primary Health Care users of the SUS in the Federal District (FD) with respect to COVID-19 in the context of the Pandemic. It involved a qualitative study based on Social Representation Theory (SRT) that analyzed 1,713 interviews with Iramuteq software users. The Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC) procedure distributed 85.79% of the word sets associated with COVID-19 into five lexical groupings. The main representations of the COVID-19 pandemic for PHC users in the FD are fear and death. The lack of coordination of the health system, which required governance by the State, made it difficult for people to receive care in a timely manner. Historically excluded social segments, particularly the black, mixed-race and economically vulnerable population, experienced the most severe impact, including loss of life. Overcoming the conflict between an austere and minimally effective State prevailing at the time of the pandemic, and the need to build a solidarity-based health system in a society with major socio-economic disparities, was crucial in ensuring that health in the post-COVID-19 era, as a human right and value, remained at the center of the debate on the Bioethics of Intervention.