Abstract

AMORIM, Maria Marta Amancio; RAMOS, Natália  and  GAZZINELLI, Maria Flavia. Identity representation of users with diabetes mellitus in primary care. Psic., Saúde & Doenças [online]. 2016, vol.17, n.1, pp.45-51. ISSN 1645-0086.  https://doi.org/10.15309/16psd170107.

People with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) to discover the disease experience disruptions in identity and behavior. One of the ways to deepen the knowledge of the subjective view of the person with diabetes 2 is to seek their identity representations, dynamic phenomenon composed of representations of self and intergroup representations. To investigate the construction of the identity representations of users with DM2 of primary health care and its relationship with self-care actions required. We used the free word association, prompting users with diabetes mellitus type 2 in a basic health unit (n = 34) to suggest a word or phrase, with justification, after inducing question: when it comes to “I am diabetic, what comes to your mind?”. The speeches were recorded, transcribed, categorized and interpreted by analyzing the technique of thematic-categorical content and theories of social representation and social identity. The interactions mediated by identity processes - social comparison, social attribution and categorization in the study group, provided the social construction of identity representations “ normal”, “accepting the disease”, “being unaccepting, and “leading a difficult life”. Health professionals must understand the context permeated by subjective sense of people with DM2 changed by the disease, beyond the biomedical viewpoint.

Keywords : identity; diabetes mellitus; primary health care; social representation.

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