Practices used by a home care team: implications for caregivers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objectives: to analyze the practices of a home care team and their implications for caregivers’ performance. Methods: qualitative study with data obtained from observation of 21 users, 30 caregivers and 6 professionals from the home health care service in a municipality in Minas Gerais, from February to June 2018. The material was analyzed from the perspective of discourse analysis according to Michel Foucault. Results: team interference upon caregivers is exercised by disciplinary practices and prescriptive, authoritative and surveilling behaviors. The team’s knowledge-power relationship determines caregivers’ acceptance through convincing or through difficulty of understanding assigned orientations. Educational practices would enable caregivers to be constituted as active, participative, empowered and reflective subjects. Final Considerations: team practices interfere with caregivers’ ways of acting and being and they have implications in objectification and subjectification processes.