Leprosy is a chronic and neglected disease with a high incapacitating power, which is
attributed to a late diagnosis and social stigma about becoming ill. Social networks are
relationships that connect different people, groups or institutions, that own bigger or smaller
cohesion, interactivity, sustainability, duration, among other attributes. The objective of this
study is getting to know the social networks of the people who are affected by leprosy from
the perspective of care. The approach of the study is quantitative-qualitative anchored in the
Social Network Analysis framework and the Bourdieu nuclear concepts. Data collection was
held in two territorial scopes of the Family Health Strategy Program with high endemicity for
leprosy, in the municipality of Sobral-Ceará, from July to August 2017, through documental
analysis (information systems and territorial reports of the boroughs Sumaré and Padre
Palhano) and semi-structured interviews held with 17 people affected by leprosy. In order to
get to know the territorial care social networks, the Ucinet © and NetDraw © software were
utilized and quantitative representation through graphs was obtained. The statements obtained
in the interviews subsidized the qualitative dimension in the data analysis through narratives.
This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the State University of Ceará,
ethical approval number 2,100,093. The social networks of people affected by leprosy are
egocentric, with a focus on the family (primary network) and healthcare practioners and
health services (secondary network). Regarding to the degree of mediation among subjects
and healthcare practioners, the network depicted the importance of the bondage established by
the community health agent in the process of listening and caring as well as the relevance of
the cultural capital related to the reference service in leprosy. From the social agent narratives,
three categories emerged: Institutional network: surveillance of visible bodies; Family
network as support for coping with the disease; Produced senses: hands that caress and push
away. In the narratives, it has been noticed the importance of family and friendship bonds as a
way of supporting and being affectionate during the illness; the long await to find out the
disease and the onset of the treatment; the search for information about the disease on the
internet; the physical incapacities and the reactional episodes as maintainer of the social
stigma, thus setting up a surveillance of the scars on the body. The analysis of these categories
has unfolded the imminent need to rethink the context of the social health practice of the
person with leprosy, aiming at overcoming normative models in the process of care by the
health services, considering the sociocultural and political dimension in the production of
knowledge incorporated and established in the subjects' daily life, thus making the social
network a possibility of construction, interaction and understanding of leprosy care.
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