As representações sociais da COVID-19 e do cuidado à pessoa com coronavírus para a população geral

Abstract

This study had the general objective of analyzing the social representation of COVID-19 and care for people with coronavirus for the population. This is a descriptive, exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, based on the Theory of Social Representations, using a structural and procedural approach. The study was developed in the ESF located in the Middle Paraíba region of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The study included 100 people chosen at random from the participating services. Data collection took place through the application of a socioeconomic questionnaire, the technique of Free Evocations of Words to the inducing terms "COVID-19" and "care for the person with COVID-19" and the performance of semi-structured interviews. The analysis of the data obtained from the application of the Free Evo-cations of Words technique was carried out through the construction of the four-house chart, being instrumented by the EVOC 2005 software. The analysis of the data obtained through the interviews were treated through the analysis of thematic-categorical content, seeking to identify registration units to contextualize the representational contents identified in the struc-tural analysis. In the analysis of the structure of the representation of “COVID-19”, the possi-ble central core identified the negative elements death, suffering, anxiety-anguish, and posi-tive elements such as care and vaccine, these suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic generated positive and negative feelings towards the pandemic and the importance of care and preven-tion in the pandemic. In the analysis of the structure of the representation of “care for the per-son with COVID-19”, the possible central core identified the elements care, fear, love, hy-giene, mask, precaution, indicating the importance of preventing oneself and taking care of others . The elements common to the two four-house charts reflect health care that is impor-tant in everyday life for maintaining health. It is concluded that the social representations, both of COVID-19 and of health care for people with COVID-19, are based on the adoption of health care related to self-care and care for others, in a movement of dual focus on disease prevention.