A intenção masculina de procurar as unidades básicas de saúde: uma análise da teoria do comportamento planejado

Abstract

One of the problems still faced by Brazilian public health is the high male mortality rate as a result of a culture that reinforces men to take care of health only when the grievance is already installed. In this sense, men only step into the health system by specialized care, being restricted to health recovery and not adhering to the primary measures of health promotion and disease prevention. With this in mind, this study aimed to evaluate the Behavioral Intention of male subjects between 25 and 59 years, in a district of Maceió-AL, to seek the Basic Health Unit (UBS), in order to contribute to the creation of strategies that promote greater male adherence to these health care spaces, reducing the alarming epidemiological statistics. Therefore, we used the Theory of Planned Behavior of Ajzen (1985), which aims to predict the performance of a certain behavior from Behavioral Intention, which is formed by Attitude, Subjective Norm and Control of Perception. Two studies were then carried out: the first, we tried to get the salient beliefs of a portion of the sample of maceioense men so that we could make a research tool; in the second study, the application of the research tool was held in a larger sample of that population. Multivariate analysis were used and the results were submitted to correlation using Pearons’ r. The results showed that the Behavioral Intention of maceioense men to seek UBS can be measured only through the Perception of Control construct that represents the attributes that facilitate and/ or hinder the male search for UBS. Thus, the Subjective Norm and the Attitude related to the Behavior, that means, the social influences and the consequences of the choice, respectively, would have no significant impact as predictors of the behavior studied.