Trabalho, Educação e Saúde - TES (Work, Education and Health) is an open access scientific journal, edited by the Joaquim Venâncio Polytechnic School of Health, from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.
With the aim of analyzing the repercussions of current management and financing policies of Primary Healthcare services in Brazil on the work of occupational therapists, an action research was carried out, operationalized as a community of practice, with 14 meetings, in which six occupational therapists from different regions participated, from April to October 2023. The transcripts of the meetings were thematically analyzed and the results were organized into three themes: the overloads and dehumanization of work in Primary Healthcare; the desire to offer quality care, learned in initial training, in contrast to the high demand for adaptability in fragmented work processes; and coping with these contingencies. The participating occupational therapists demonstrate the diversity of employment relationships, in a variety of services and populations served. The meetings in the community of practice enabled access to multiple realities of the work of occupational therapists, with repercussions on personal and professional daily life and health. In addition, tensions between training for community care in Primary Healthcare and the reality of individualized, fragmented work driven by goals are highlighted – evidencing contradictions between the policy of training for Primary Healthcare, the policy of implementation, and the execution of this work.
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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0691-8739