Ethical issues and social justice in the Estratégia Saúde da Família

Abstract

This qualitative study aimed to identify ethical problems from the perspective of the team members of the Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in Brazilian state capitals, linking such issues to the theoretical field of social justice. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 members of 4 teams in the cities of Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Natal and Salvador. The data were subjected to the thematic modality of the content analysis technique, and two main categories emerged. The first involved the main ethical problems
in the daily life of the teams identified by the participants, while the second described the functioning that could be identified from the position of the participants with regard to the construction of ethical relations in
the field of social justice. It concludes that ethical conflicts in the context of primary health care interfere with the work process and that an approach from the perspective of social justice may allow Estratégia Saúde da
Família teams to tackle such issues in their everyday work.