Domestic violence against women representations and practices of the community health worker

Introduction - The present research discusses the relevance of the community health worker (CHW) in identifying cases of domestic violence against women, considering their dimension and scope in human relations and the aspects that contributed to their invisibility throughout history, as well as the health and quality of life of individuals, becoming a public health problem. It is postulated that the study of social representations of this professional may favor effectiveness of actions and interventions of the family health team. Objective - to know and to problematize the representations of the CHW on domestic violence against the woman. Method - all the community health workers from five Family Health Units from Jundiaí were invited to participate in the survey. Five focus groups were carried out and Bardin Content Theme Analysis was used to analyse the social representations. Results - The representations of the community health worker regarding the private and particular aspect of the relations, as well as the women's responsibility for the understanding of their autonomy to break with the cycle of violence, emerged as unfavorable aspects for the reflection on the gender issues as well as for the elaboration of the actions by the health services. The assimilation of these representations also reflected in the distancing of community health worker from the context of violence against women, since for these professionals, the limit between the public and private sphere should not be surpassed without women's permission, consent or request for help. Other aspects such as the confusion between notification and denunciation, disrepute in the Maria da Penha Law, the fear of exposure and retaliation in the post-denunciation and the insecurity about the secrecy and the ethics of Public Safety professionals produced in the community health worker the lack of interest in the notification and the resistance to both the denunciation and the orientation of the woman to make the report of occurrence. Conclusion - Taking into account the complexity of the problem, it is pointed to the training of community health worker and other professionals of the health team in a perspective aimed at approaching violence. It is understood, however, that the training of these professionals can not be thought apart from an adverse context of organization of the service, which involves outsourcing, precariousness and stressful work routine geared toward goals. Therefore, it is not only the training of the professional that will solve this question, but the consideration of other elements such as the engagement of health in the transformation of culture, especially with regard to gender representations. In this way, health can contribute to transformative practices, enabling discussion in articulation with social movements and society about this possibility of change