Occupational Therapy in Primary Health Care: responsibilities, actions, and technologies

This article aims to provide means to mobilize occupational therapists towards reflections and studiesthat support and tool up Occupational Therapy (OT) for its attributions, actions and technologies related toPrimary Health Care (PHC). It is the result of discussions held at the First National Seminar on OccupationalTherapy in PHC, which occurred in the Brazilian Congress of OT in Sao Paulo/2011. Its goal is to look at PHCin the sanitary international movement, its expression in Brazil and some historical reflections on the insertionof OT at such level of care. It points out that the formation of such profession, in spite of being historicallygrounded on the biomedical view of health, has contributed to a more effectual and comprehensive approachto the concept of health, for in its object of study and intervention, which includes the understanding of therelationship that individuals establish with their everyday activities, there is an expansion of awareness of the processes of illness and disabilities and also the biopsychosocial understanding of the individuals cared at thislevel. It also carries out an exercise of confrontation between the principles and propositions advocated byPrimary Care and the normative, epistemic and pragmatic precepts of this profession, suggesting possible OTattributions, actions and technologies related to Primary Health Care. It ends with the warning that, in spite ofOT progress so far, this profession is still quantitatively and qualitatively limited as to its actions, attributionsand technologies, and suggests further studies and debates on the matter to strengthen and tool up OccupationalTherapy for Primary Health Care.