Mothers' perception about health education in brazilian primary health care: A qualitative study

Background: Health education actions are strategic actions aimed at health promotion. Moreover, better health education practices have been linked to comprehensive care developed by primary health services.

Aim: To understand the perception of mothers about the health education developed by the Primary Health Care (PHC) services.

Design: We adopted a qualitative research approach, conducted using semi-structured interviews, and assuming, as the theoretical reference, the attributes derived from PHC. Pregnant women and mothers of children under 1 year old attended by Brazilian Family Health teams were included.

Results: Eight pregnant women and twelve mothers of children under 1 year of age participated in the study. These mothers perceive educational actions as necessary only for primiparous mothers. They value the guidance of informal networks and maternity hospitals to the detriment of primary services, and they do not adhere to care that conflicts with their previous knowledge. The evidence shows that the educational actions of the primary health services do not adequately respond to the attributes of community orientation, family focus, and cultural competence.

Conclusion: It is necessary to modify the educational practices in order to incorporate and value the existing knowledge in the territory, thereby adapting the care guidelines to the local context.