International Journal of Health Sciences

The Physician’s Role as a Health Educador in Primary Care: a Systematic Review
Fabiane Frigotto De Barros, Carolina Rodrigues Laranjeira Vilar, Priscilla Dal Prá Campos, Izabel Cristina Meister Martins Coelho, Elaine Rossi Ribeiro

Abstract
Introduction: Health education can be considered a tool of unquestionable quality for health promotion. Aim: Investigate the role of the physician in health education in primary care. Method: Systematic review, the research project was submitted to the PROSPERO Platform. The databases used were Virtual Health Library (BVS) and Google Scholar, with the search strategy: "Physician role" AND "health education" AND "primary care". Inclusion criteria were: full text available, free access, original articles, in English, Portuguese and Spanish, published between 2013 and 2018, that answered the research question. The sample consisted in 6 articles. Results presentation: There were few evidences in the studied sample of educational actions performed by the physician, showing some edges in the performance of health promotion actions that empower individuals and give them autonomy to care for themselves. In the sample analyzed, it was found that the description of the physician's role as a health educator occurs in a very superficial way. Conclusions: This review leads to the conclusion that the physician's role as a health educator in primary care is not clearly described in the literature. This can be attributed to the physician's own difficulty in prioritizing their role in educational actions, as a consequence of the traditional training and based on the biomedical model, with a tendency to curative clinical practice.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijhs.v8n4a5