Nursing Care in Child Health: An Integrative Review of the Literature

Changes occur in childhood that influence the development and adulthood. Therefore, they deserve attention of health services. Assistance should be integral, seeking to meet the child’s needs at different times in his life. Considering this, the question is: what is the concern of nursing with the health of children in primary health care? The objective was to identify the scientific knowledge currently produced on the concern of nursing with the health of children in primary health care. To this end, an integrative literature review was carried out with the establishment of the keywords to answer the guiding question: Child, Primary Health Care and Nursing, identified in DeCS and MeSH, used in Portuguese and English. After the establishment of the objectives and questions to be answered, there was a systematic and comprehensive search in the Virtual Health Library, which includes the following databases: LILACS, IBECS, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, SciELO and BDENF, articles in Portuguese and English, published between 2003 and 2013. The sample consisted of 18 articles after the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria and, using only texts with available abstracts, that contemplated the established theme. The ones directed to adolescents with specific themes, with study axis centered on pathologies, were excluded. Works published previously to 2003 were not part of the selection. The sample was divided into four main themes: ‘Evaluation and description of primary care structure to assist children’, ‘Attention to child growth and development’, ‘Warning in childcare to children under two years of age’ and ‘The Integrated Management for Childhood Illness (IMCI) ‘. The study showed nursing concern in child care and in the health of children under two years of age, a positive factor for the quality of care and the reduction of child mortality. Considering the selected keywords, works with schoolchildren were not found. Also, it was observed the existence of few publications that deal with the relationship among the services. In conclusion, there is concern of nursing with children health, but there are issues to be addressed by nursing to improve the quality of car e.