Representations and social dynamics about men’s sexual health - nurses’ narratives

Abstract

IntroductionThe social representations about sexual health appear as different forms of social knowledge, when shared and developed, contributing to the construction of a common reality for a social set.The meaning about what is understood as sexual health shapes the actions and the practices of those who are most confronted with this reality. When we talk about social representations in sexual health, we are talking about a complex subject that is product of the interactions and understanding processes of social groups (health professionals, in this case nurses, and men themselves and the relationship between them). ObjectiveTo analyze nurses' narratives about men's sexual health. MethodThis is a descriptive study of qualitative approach, with data collection through an online focus group with 9 primary and differentiated health care nurses. The study obtained the approval from the Ethics Committee of ESEL, well as the informed consent from all participants. Data analysis was performed using the IRaMuTeQ-R interface software, using lexicographic analysis (hierarchical descent classification [CHD] and similarity analysis [AS]). Results and DiscussionThe CHD had a retention of 84.86% of the text corpus and from the analysis of the nurses' narratives. Four classes were emerged: entitled interaction between professionals and men, therapeutic itineraries, men's access to sexual health care and nurses' social representations of sexual health. The last class represents 30.1% of the textual data and 81 text segments, outstanding words such as will, subject and talk, and all of them with X 2 ranging from 15.99 to 40.21. Conclusions and Implications for Future ResearchThe nurses' narratives translate social representations that denounce women as privileged in matters such as health care, in which men are excluded. The concept of sexual health is strongly marked by social dynamics based on beliefs and taboos, which condition men's access to care and nurses' intervention.The training of health professionals in and for men's sexual health emerges from the nurses' discourse as an essential area of investment, involving men and aiming at the deconstruction of myths and stereotypes associated with sexuality.