Health-illness and dental care in rural areas: social representations of Argentine women.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the social representations of the health/illness/care process from a dental dimension in rural dwellers in the north of the province of Cordoba, Argentina. Qualitative research was conducted based on the interpretivist paradigm. A purposive sampling was designed and selected to set up interviews with women who attend the hospital in Villa Candelaria Norte, and in-depth interviews with a subsample of dwellers from the area. The data were analyzed based on the grounded theory using Atlas Ti Software. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee (Res. 384/13). The people interviewed were separated into three groups: a) dwellers from the town center, b) dwellers from surrounding areas, and c) the health care team. The analysis dimension of the health/illness/care process is identified from a dental dimension in two sub-categories: perception of pain and loss of teeth. The results obtained serve to highlight the fact that "health" is associated with the demand for care when faced with an oral disease, which reproduces a biomedical model – repairing illness; pain and loss of teeth have become naturalized. It can be concluded that the results obtained reflect the lack of a positive conception of oral health which would lead to preventive care. Acknowledging these social representations related to health guides the construction of knowledge to plan actions pertaining to oral health care and disease.