Telerehabilitation in the Transitional Care of Patients with Sequelae Associated with COVID-19: Perception of Portuguese Nurses.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many changes and challenges to health professionals, due to a lack of knowledge when dealing with the disease, fear of contagion, and the sequelae that characterize long COVID. To deal with this situation, respiratory rehabilitation programs are recommended in face-to-face and/or telerehabilitation modalities. (1) Background: This study had as its primary aim identifying the aspects/components to be considered in the planning and implementation of telerehabilitation interventions that guarantee transitional care for people with long COVID-19 after hospitalization and as a secondary aim identifying the positive aspects of telerehabilitation. (2) Methods: The method used to answer the research question was a focus group, carried out online with eight nurses specialized in rehabilitation nursing. The answers to the semi-structured interview were subjected to content analysis, and qualitative data analysis software (WebQDA®) was used to organize and analyze the findings. (3) Results: Four categories emerged from the content analysis: coordination between care levels; transitional care telerehabilitation intervention; advantages of telerehabilitation; and opportunities. (4) Conclusions: These findings make an important contribution to the reorganization of transitional care, allowing the identification of central aspects to be considered in the planning and implementation of telerehabilitation programs for people with long COVID.

Laying the Foundations of Continuing Education in Health in the Family Health Strategy

Primary healthcare must guarantee health and well-being for the community as a whole, ensuring equity and quality in different responses. For this goal to be achieved, teams must be trained and integrated, and service flows must be functional. Continuing education in health, as a form of training professionals in the workplace, helps to center responses around the needs and preferences of people and families, and to balance the fulfillment of demands by using better work management as a starting point. The objectives of the present qualitative study were to elucidate the meaning given by health professionals who developed their activities in the Family Health Strategy in order to continue education in health, and to discuss the qualification and structuring of work management with this type of education as a background. The methodology used was Straussian grounded theory. Thirty professionals in four Brazilian health units who had experience in the family health field participated in the study. Data were collected between June 2018 and May 2019. Based on three categories, the emerging substantive theory was as follows: laying the foundations of continuing education in health in a collective dialogic and dialectical effort to contribute to the qualification of the work processes in the Family Health Strategy. The professionals’ accounts showed that they recognize the importance of continuing education in health and the need to discuss it, given its potential to transform and to assist in the education of professionals with autonomy in the management of their work processes.