Atenção à saúde da pessoa idosa na estratégia saúde da família no município de Santo Antônio/RN: um estudo de caso

According to demographic estimates, by the year 2025 Brazil will be the sixth country in the world in number of elderly. For this reason, it is a purpose of public policies to help people to reach that age being healthier. The current health care model of health surveillance through the Family Health Strategy (EFS, in portuguese) is configured as a gateway into the care of the elderly in the Unified Health System (SUS, in portuguese). It is also an area of development of practices to promote health, prevention and control of chronic nondegenerative diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze the health care of the elderly provided by ESF professionals for the achievement of a full care. The study is descriptive case study with a quantitative approach, performed in the city of Santo Antônio/RN. The population included all health professionals, who are FHS members of the city that agreed to participate of the survey, a total of 80 professionals. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, having mostly closed questions and divided into two parts: one containing sociodemographic information of health professionals and vocational training and the other, the activities carried on by the professionals in senior care, being analyzed from a database tabulated in a spreadsheet and discussed according to the descriptive statistics in tables, graphs and charts using frequencies, medians and values of central tendency. It was verified a predominance of professionals who finished highschool, mostly female, aged from 30 to 34 years old, with training completed in the last 10 years, without being graduated in the field of geriatrics or gerontology and mostly without training in gerontology. Family members and caregivers were the components of the social support network most identified by the professionals (66.3%).The elderly access to the Family Health Basic Unit was considered by83.8% of professionals as the most important factor that interferes in the activities of health care of the elderly. Considering the ...