Comprehensive Care in Health Teaching: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT Transforming the disjointed and individualistic state-of-affairs of the Brazilian health service is promoted by the professional training geared toward comprehensive care and a collective interest for the democratization of health. The concept of integrality in relation to care permeates the web of health actions with effective coordination between teaching and service and links between knowledge and the actions within the scope of comprehensive care competences. The aim of this study is to review publications from 2010 to June 2016 in relation to comprehensive health care in teaching health sciences. The chosen method for the study was a systematic review conducted through Prisma-P. Article searches were carried out in the Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) and PubMed databases. Once the inclusion and exclusion criteria had been applied, the resulting 35 articles were evaluated by two reviewers who used the Critical Appraisal Checklist for Interpretative and Critical Research (JBI Qari), corresponding to 32 studies included in this review. Analysis of the studies gave rise to four categories: training under the axis of comprehensive care comprehensive care from the students’ perspective, comprehensive care from the teachers’ perspective, and the teaching of comprehensive care. Based on this systematic review, a conceptual search model for integrality was developed, with teaching/training through higher education institutions on one side, and settings for health care practices/services on the other, that is, where health care actions take place. It is essential to develop innovative curricular proposals linked into the principles of the Brazilian Unified Health System and public health policies, to support actions geared to the needs of society, and subsequently help health professionals attain competencies associated to comprehensive care. The model is shaped as a circle of actions that are juxtaposed and intersecting, and strengthen the teaching-learning process. This model breaks away from isolated actions, in which teaching and service are disconnected and tend to weaken the proposals and the expected results. Isolated actions are often implemented in a holistic manner, but have only a superficial effect without interlinking actions that result in comprehensive care. It was concluded that comprehensive care must be consolidated through daily professional practices that are transversally overlap, and be promoted as an educational principle in training.