A mídia e sua relação com a formação de opiniões sobre o sistema único de saúde.

Abstract

In view of the political and economic changes that occurred in Brazil during the 1950s to the 1970s, in 1986, the VIII National Health Conference was held, culminating in the creation of the Unified Health System (SUS). Based on the principles of universality, comprehensiveness and equity, SUS has been the target of numerous criticisms and the media carry out this practice frequently. Thus, the research aimed to investigate the relationship of the media in forming opinions about SUS. It was an exploratory study with a quantitative approach, carried out in two Basic Health Units in Cajazeiras, with a sample of 90 users. A structured questionnaire applied to users in the period of November 2010 was used for data collection. Regarding the characterization of the population, there was a predominance of adults, female, with medium and low socioeconomic status. From the results, the following was obtained: 81.1% of users consider that the media gives the population a failed image of health, however, the experiences / lived in the services (46.7%) are taken as the main influencer of population in building opinions about health; 91.1% of the participants believe that the media also influence the population to form their opinion on the topic. Thus, despite the experiences lived in health services are considered as a determining factor in forming the opinion of users, the contribution of the media to this construction is not discarded, and almost all participants consider themselves to be influenced by the reports and materials transmitted by the health media. Thus, it is pertinent to affirm that the communicative media do contribute to the formation of opinions, collective and individual, about public health, being necessary a greater reflection on their performance in society, since the greater the doubts generated in the population with regard to the quality and effectiveness of SUS, it will also be of less interest in participating in the search for improvements in health.