Profilaxia Pós-Exposição Sexual: entre acordos e desacordos, protocolos e (pre)conceitos.

Abstract

Despite all the advances that have occurred since the appearance of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), there are still many people who are being infected by it. Prevention strategies, however, are of great significance in the fight against the disease. Post sexual exposure prophylaxis is presented as a public health policy that is part of the biomedical arsenal of measures concerning AIDS, and has created discussions about its implementation and concerns regarding the so-called risk compensation. The goal of this thesis is to describe and analyze the preventive itinerary of people who search for post-exposure prophylaxis in two health services in the city of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the plots involved in its prescription. This ethnographic research was accomplished through two methods: participant observation and in-depth interviews with nine people who used PEP and eleven health professionals, among nurses and doctors. The data analysis happened through the analysis of content from the collected material, which were split into analytical categories. Over the study, it was possible to notice various issues that involve PEP and its prescription. They are: A large share of the population is unfamiliar with the existence of prophylaxis, even some health professionals; the itinerary of the search for prophylaxis surrounds many issues; although the users of PEP understand the measure as something positive, health professionals show reservations about its distribution, enabling to observe different approach regarding the subjects who have been sexually exposed. We became conscious of the need of discussions about PEP, which involve all of the social actors in tis scenery, once the biomedical apparatus, by itself, is not capable of stopping the disease. In order to be effectively understood, as a public health policy, the implementation of prophylaxis needs political and social responses, which include the community s perspective.