Discomfort and unease of the subject in the interpretation movement of a Tuberculosis questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: to propose a discussion about traces of the derivation of meanings, the subjects' discomfort and resistance when they are called upon to signify a questionnaire on the transfer of the Directly Observed Treatment of Tuberculosis policy, in order to reveal the limitations of closed questionnaires in the subject's interpretation process. METHOD: health professionals from a Primary Health Care Unit in Porto Alegre/RS were interviewed and some excerpts from the interviews were investigated in the light of French Discourse Analysis. RESULTS: resistance, discomfort, slips, silencing and the derivation of meanings were observed in the subjects' interpretation. CONCLUSION: the interpretation process has multiple meanings and varies from subject to subject. The questionnaire, as a prototype of the logically stabilized universe, fails when the purpose is to control the interpretation. Its isolated use in health research can entail inexactness or incompleteness of the collected data. Therefore, its use associated with qualitative research techniques is ideal.

[The coordination of care for tuberculosis control]. / A coordenação da assistência no controle da tuberculose.

This descriptive epidemiological study analyzed the coordination of tuberculosis (TB) patient care in primary healthcare services according to 23 patients, 16 professionals, and 17 administrators from Ribeirão Preto, Sao Paulo, using an instrument adapted to evaluate TB. According to the informants, the coordination of healthcare provided to patients under the treatment of the Tuberculosis Control Program team was considered satisfactory; however, when there is a need to refer the patient to other care units there are weak points in the coordination of healthcare, which include: interruption of communication flow; and patients' incipient participation in the care process, with a need to increase the sense of responsibility for patient care and encourage patients to become active agents in the process.

Tuberculosis control: patient perception regarding orientation for the community and community participation.

To evaluate, from the patient's perspective, actions of orientation for the community and community participation carried out in tuberculosis control in health services in Ribeirão Preto-SP. This was an evaluative quantitative exploratory study which used part of the Primary Care Assessment Tool, adapted and validated for tuberculosis care, applied through interview, with 100 patients. Indicators of the instrument and analysis of variance were used. The realization of social partnerships for delivery of the sputum pot together with the community, the delivery of the sputum pot to the community by professionals, and the participation of the community to discuss the problem of tuberculosis were identified, 5%, 6% and 5%, respectively. The health services with fewer patients in treatment showed the best indicators. The actions of social partnerships, searching for respiratory symptomatics in the community and community participation in tuberculosis control are poorly incorporated by health services.

[Coverage of directly observed treatment (DOTS) of tuberculosis in the state of São Paulo (1998-2004)]. / Cobertura do tratamento diretamente observado (DOTS) da Tuberculose no Estado de São Paulo (1998 a 2004).

The Supervised Treatment (ST) in the 36 priority municipalities for TB control of the State of São Paulo between 1998 and 2004 was analyzed with the aim of describing the coverage of the DOTS. This exploratory study used information from the State of São Paulo's Health Secretary's EPI-TB database. An instrument of data collection was elaborated and the coverage of the ST was calculated. The data was put in the Excel program. In the municipalities that implemented the ST in 1998, coverage was under 20%. In 1999 half of the municipalities had coverage between 11% and 49%. In 2000, the implementation was 100%, but the maximum coverage was 61%. Between 2001 and 2002 the coverage increased in 69.44% of the municipalities. In 2003, coverage was below of 50% in 22 municipalities. In 2004 there was a trend to increasing coverage in 63.89% of the municipalities.

[The performance of health services in providing DOTs in households to control tuberculosis]. / Desempenho de serviços de saúde no Tratamento Diretamente Observado no domicílio para controle da tuberculose.

Exploratory study of qualitative and quantitative nature that evaluates the performance of the health services in providing DOT in households of a big city in Brazil. For the quantitative analysis, indexes were created to evaluate the optimization of material/human resources and the observation of the medicine ingestion. It was observed that performance of services is influenced by the availability of human/material resources, the internal organization of services and the absence of the ill person in the household. For the qualitative analysis it was used the content analysis, thematic modality. The main factors influencing the performance of the health service were found to be its insufficiency of material and human resources and the ill person's social-cultural and economic context. Concluding, it is necessary permanent managerial, organizational and techno-assistance qualification of the health professionals in the TB control.