How is Violence Themed in Nursing Education? Curricular Components in Northeastern Brazil

Abstract

It aims to identify how the phenomenon of violence is themed in the curricular components of undergraduate nursing courses of public and private higher education institutions in Northeastern of Brazil. This is a descriptive and exploratory study, with documentary design and qualitative approach, based on the identification of the terms violence/aggression/abuse/aggressive/abusive in discipline menus available online from higher education institutions in northeastern Brazil. The data were organized and processed by the IraMuTeQ software and analyzed in the light of the relevant literature. In total, 412 nursing graduate institutions were found, in which 49 had documents available online, and, of these, 21 had the term violence. The processing of the syllabuses in the program resulted in significant use (79.37%) originating from the Descending Hierarchical Classification, seven classes that reveal the highlight of the approach of violence directed at the female public and in this context, the approach to violence against women was associated with sexual and reproductive aspects, and in a secondary way, it integrated the perspective of female vulnerabilities, power relations, consequences of violence and nursing care to cope with the phenomenon. Violence against children and adolescents and the discussion of violence in the contexts of collective health and health promotion were also approached in a less intense way. There was a predominance of the approach to violence aimed at women’s health, under a biological approach, with a deficit in the transversality of the contents. However, it is important to highlight potentialities associated with the approach and teaching of contents that stimulate the critical thinking of the student before female vulnerabilities and power relations between the sexes, which can contribute to the reformulation and reorientation of nursing curricula, restraining deficits, and optimizing the potentialities.