Activities of speech-language-hearing therapists in the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center from the perspective of team cooperation

Abstract

Purpose: to describe the activities of speech-language-hearing therapists in the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center from the perspective of team cooperation. Methods: an exploratory study with a quantitative and qualitative approach. The participants in the research were 4 speech-language-hearing therapists and 3 speech-language-hearing residents who were developing their practices in the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center of Vitória de Santo Antão, PE, Brazil. The data were collected at two moments: The first one involved the analysis of the instrument where the activities of the speech-language-hearing therapists in the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center were registered; in the second one, these professionals were interviewed to understand their work process in PHC, in relation to team cooperation. Results: the speech-language-hearing therapists presented an adequate understanding of the concept of team cooperation and the broad range of activities carried out, predominantly individual attention (27%) and shared group activities (18%). The need to strengthen their professional training to work with primary care and the little knowledge of the teams and population about the work of the speech-language-hearing therapists are the main challenges reported by the interviewees. To improve the work of the teams, they suggested more continuing education opportunities and more participation of the administrators in interpersonal conflict mediation. Conclusion: despite the difficulties related to professional education and the work process, the speech-language-hearing therapists in the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center have been performing activities from the perspective of team cooperation, collaborating to the comprehensiveness and solvability of care.