Prevenção de doenças na perspectiva do estado vacinal em agentes comunitários de saúde

Abstract

With this study, we aimed at the vaccination situation of the Community Health Agents (ACS, in Portuguese) that work in the Primary Health Care Units (UAPS, in Portuguese) of a city in the region of Zona da Mata of Minas Gerais. The UAPS are focused on health promotion and risk control activities. The work teams of the UAPS are multidisciplinary and are composed of professionals from different disciplines, among them there is the ACS, a professional responsible for the registration of families, mapping of areas, identification of community health risks, orientation of the population for promotion and to promote health and environmental education, among other attributions. In this way, they come in contact with healthy people and also with those affected by some disease, exposing themselves to pathogens. This variety of attributions, the peculiarities and the complexity of their activities are possible reasons to make people conduct research that addresses these professionals. The main purpose of this study to analyze the vaccination situation of the ACS of the UAPS of a city in the Zona da Mata of Minas Gerais. It is a cross-sectional, quantitative study with 400 participants. Data collection took place in two periods, the first from July to October 2015 and the second from October 2016 to February 2017. The ACS of this investigation were predominantly female (91.3%), mean age 46 year-old, white (46.3%), catholic religion (58%) and most of them having completed high school (75.4%). The analysis of immunization coverage showed that 205 (51.3%) ACS have the complete vaccination schedule required for health workers, and 351 (87.8%) are vaccinated with the third dose of Hepatitis B, 267 (66.8%) with a Triple Viral booster vaccine, 337 (84.3%) with an Adult double booster vaccine, 342 (85.5%) against Influenza during the last year's campaign, and 308 (77%) with 1 Dose and 1 booster vaccine against Yellow fever. In the bivariate analysis, significant p-value (<0.05) was observed when the variables Age Range, Viral Triplice Vaccine and Working Time with Hepatitis B were analyzed. The multivariate analysis showed that there is a higher probability of ACS to have the vaccination up to date if they are black, catholic or evangelical, if they have the vaccination card, if they underwent the AntiHbs test, if they received orientation regarding the vaccines they should keep up as a health worker and if they work in the regions Northeast, East, Central, West or Rural. The study showed that the majority of the participants are concerned with actions related to vaccination, but they find it difficult to keep their cards up to date and there is a need to address the issue of diseases that can be acquired in the work of ACS and that are susceptible of prevention through immunization.