Perceptions of community health agents about violence against elderly of people

Abstract

Violence against the elderly is a serious public health problem, which has been growing and interfering with the quality of life of this population group. In view of this, this article aims to investigate the perceptions of community health agents (CHA) about violence against elderly people and their knowledge about this topic. To this end, one exploratory and descriptive research was carried out with a qualitative approach based on interviews with seven health agents, whose contents were analyzed using the MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020 Software. This search resulted in two categories: “weaknesses in working with violence to the elderly” and “the power of the multidisciplinary team, of home visits, qualified listening and teaching-service integration” with their respective subcategories. In speech of the CHAs, the lack of knowledge of the coping network was emphatically pointed out, which is a great weakness, proving to be a challenge to be overcome. In short, community agents are at an impasse in recognizing the Network to combat violence against the elderly, with a notable lack of training and ongoing education to deal with this social problem. It is necessary to develop qualification strategies for CHWs, and also for the institutions participating in the Network to combat the elderly to be strengthened, enhancing the monitoring of proposed actions in cases of violence.