EVALUATION OF A TRAINING OF COMMUNITARIAN HEALTH AGENTS IN
TECHNIQUES OF PREVENTION OF THE HARMFUL USE OF ALCOHOL
Authors: Ronzani, Telmo; Montianéle de Castro, Priscila; Formigoni, Maria Lucia.
BRAZIL
The alcohol use is an important health problem, in virtue of the diverse associate problems.
There is a high prevalence of harmful alcohol use in patients of the Primary Health Care,
being the office of the Communitarian Health Agent (CHA), approach the community
among the service. Objective: evaluate the impact of training for the use of an instrument
of screening for the abusive alcohol use (AUDIT), associated to the technique of Brief
Intervention (BI), in the beliefs and attitudes of CHA, and to detect the main difficulties
perceived during the process of implantation of this methodology. Method: 63 CHA were
trained for screening and BI. The impact in the knowledge and beliefs of the CHA were
evaluated by quantitative method (questionnaires) and qualitative (focal group). Results:
The training contributed for improvement in the objective knowledge and a positive change
of attitudes related to the practice of screening and BI, however, difficulties for
implementation were detected during the accomplishment of routines. Discussion: This
proposal points to the necessity of strategies of prevention and a more effective technician
preparation to the CHA.
Key Words: Prevention, Alcohol, Primary Health Care, Communitarian Health Agent.
Acknowledgements:This study is part of an international multicentric project (Evaluating
Alcohol Brief Intervention Implementation), supported by the Brazilian agencies FAPESP,
CNPq, AFIP and Federal University of Juiz de Fora (PROPESQ/BCCG), FAPEMIG (Process
nbr. SHA 2748/06), by World Health Organization (WHO) and NIH/NIAAA- R21,
coordinated by Thomas F. Babor and John C. Higgins-Biddle, from the Department of
Community Medicine Care & Health Care, University of Connecticut Health Center, involved
in the initial planning of this study.
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