Conhecer e intervir para mudar a Jamaica

Abstract

Any intervention in the community with the objective of health-promotion has, as one of its’ elementary steps, the knowledge of the community health-status, granting that the planned actions are directed towards the real health-problems identified within the community, intervening in the way of diminishing or eliminating them. This, consequently, elevates de population heath-indicators. The present study describes the primary steps of the communitarian interventions that took place in the neighborhood of “Vale de Chícharos”, and were based on the phases of health-planning used in the trainee internship, which is part of the Masters in Nursing, specialized in community nursing. The trainee internship was lead in the UCC Seixal and was developed in 3 separate modules. The first module consisted in the making of the health diagnostics that would expose the data necessary to identify the health-problems existing within the “Vale de Chícharos” community. From the identified problems in this health diagnostic, some of the results stood out as being more evident, for example, only 24% of the population sampling had realized the standard vaccination plan and only 1% made regular oral-health vigilance. To add to the above named results emerged the environmental problem, evident by the visible garbage accumulation on the streets along the neighborhood and the lack of basic sanitary conditions, which represents a health-risk itself, for the community. These problems showed themselves as the priority intervention areas that were structured as a result of the steps taken in the second module of the internship – priority assessment. The development of the planned interventions took place on the third module, and they were developed in the sense of altering the identified health problems, more specifically in the area of vaccination and the area of oral hygiene vigilance. For the first specified problem was established an action-of-vaccination witch was extended to all the children under the age of 10 years-old, resident on “Vale de Chícharos”, therefor diminishing the number of cases of children with incomplete vaccination plan. As for the second specified problem, the action developed was meant to reduce the number of cases of children under the age of 6, with no oral hygiene vigilance, allowing the fulfillment of the objectives conducted on the National Health Plan. It was also possible to inform the residents on the environmental problem above mentioned and therefor making the population acknowledge the need to clean the streets of the neighborhood, and so it was able to be taken forward an action in collaboration with the community-partners. In sum, it is imperative to make evident that the results obtained with this study, can support and offer a strong contribution to the UCC intervention in the community and to the community itself, making possible several problem-solving actions that will invert the health-problems identified, and will have, as a primary objective, the prevention of illness situations witch acts in the context of primary-prevention taking forward the health promotion of the community.

Date of Award	Sept 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Amélia Simões Figueiredo (Supervisor)