O que trazes, de onde vens, o que te dou? Fatores socioculturais e sua influência na relação entre fisioterapeutas e pacientes.

Abstract

Based on the discussions in the field of Sociology and Anthropology of Health and on the concept of habitus, by Pierre Bourdieu, in this study we analyzed the nature of the physiotherapist and patient relationships, based on interviews with a sample of 80 members of two sets of those actors in the city of Campina Grande, Paraíba. Given the complexity inherent in the practice of health and diseased individuals, or with residual dysfunction diseases, professionals in the health sector with diverse backgrounds, take part of the team during multi-and interdisciplinary levels of primary, secondary and tertiary to health. Therefore, each encounter between professionals and patients implies in a possibility of relationship between them. In it each player is positioned not only making use of their professional competence, but also the relational skill. However, it is common understanding that there are ongoing, a number of tensions and conflicts in health care resulting in the so-called crisis of the clinic harmony. It reflects in the day by day of public or private health services. It is revealed by the growing dissatisfaction, frustration and fear of citizens-patients. We identify, therefore, that the relationship between the categories of health professionals and patients occurs between individuals in their social positions, an the actors behavior are oriented according to the habituses related to those social positions. In these relationships the main elements of differentiation are economic and cultural capital. This relationship which is structurally asymmetric, may be more or less authoritarian, more or less participatory and presents a striking and naturalized feature: physiotherapists rules and patients obey. With this understanding, in this study, data were collected on the "habitus" by the therapist and the habitus of each patient in order to identify to what extent they influence the relations established in physical therapy procedures. Data analysis indicates the strength of "habitus" in constituting the character of the encounters between therapists and patients, since dispositions inherited through the subjects’ trajectories in social space which are determined mainly by the volume of economic and cultural capital influence proxemic operations and responses to verbal and nonverbal elements of interaction.