Representações sociais de mulheres com estomias

Abstract

Introduction: It is known that receiving a medical diagnosis in the face of a chronic illness/situation or even with the need to undergo mutilating surgery such as ostomization, usually have a major impact on people's lives. The object of study is the social representations of women with ostomies. Objective: Understand the Social Representations of Women with Ostomies. Methodology: This is a descriptive research with a qualitative approach, carried out with 18 women who were in two reference centers for the care of people with stoma, located in the city of Maceió/AL. The collected data were transcribed in full and analyzed according to the content analysis technique from Bardin's perspective. The Theory of Social Representations was used as a theoretical reference. Results: It became possible to identify three thematic units: The appearance of the ostomy; Living with the ostomy and Social representations regarding the meanings/feelings related to the ostomy. The results demonstrated the social representations of women with a stoma, which is experienced in a dramatic and conflicting way, resulting in the emergence of various feelings that cause an internal conflict in them. Conclusion: The fact that most people have never heard of or had contact with an individual with a stoma causes negative representations to be created when faced with what is unfamiliar. Therefore, it is important to work on this topic so that social barriers and stereotypes are broken, so that people with a stoma feel included and belonging to society, so that negative feelings are alleviated.