DUTIES OF NURSING PROFESSIONALS IN THE FAMILY HEALTH STRATEGY: A REVIEW OF STANDARDS AND PRACTICES

Abstract

Introduction: The duties assigned to nursing professionals encompass numerous activities ranging from simple, technical tasks to more complex, management-related accomplishments. All of that is added to the conviviality and responsibility with the community and users of the healthcare system. Objective: To identify the state-of-art of duties assigned to nurses in primary health care in national journals. Methods: This was a qualitative, non-systematic literature review, based on electronic searches using the following descriptors: "Duties of Family Health Professionals", "Nursing Duties" and "Basic Health Units". The results were organized through categorical content analysis. Results: A total of 532 articles were retrieved in the searches. Of these, 14 articles were selected and 7 were included in the final review after careful analysis and association with the study scope. These articles originated three thematic axes, as follows: in axis 1, nursing duties were found to be extremely linked to management activities; in axis 2, we observed that health education developed by nurses is deficient; in axis 3, the autonomy achieved by professionals was effective, but resulted in overlap of functions. Conclusions: The studies have shown that nursing professionals are focused on a triad: management, health education and overlapping of duties. DESCRIPTORS Primary nursing; Family Health Strategy; Basic health Unit.