Family Health Nursing Specialty: national reality

• DOI: 10.22533/at.ed.1593752318096

• Palavras-chave: Family Health Nursing Specialty (EESF); Family Health Nursing (ESF); Family Health Unit (USF).

• Keywords: Family Health Nursing Specialty (EESF); Family Health Nursing (ESF); Family Health Unit (USF).

• Abstract:

  Introduction & Objectives: On June 21, 2017, Decree-Law No. 73/2017, article 7, point 4 was published in ``Diário da República``, 1st series – number of holder of the title of specialist in family health nursing”. With this study, we intend to find out how many nurses working in the USF have the title of EESF.

  Methodology: Cross-sectional, descriptive research study with an analytical component. The BI – CSP and OE databases were used to collect the variables.
  Results and Discussion: At national level there are 603 USF, of which 314 are USF Model B and 289 USF Model A, with 4024 nurses working in these respective units (2281 nurses in USF Model B and 1743 nurses in USF Model A).
  According to data from the Order of Nurses, there are currently 237 specialists in Family Health, which corresponds to 5.89% of nurses working in USF.

  Conclusion: Although the criteria for attributing the title of ESF nurse have been created, either through individual certification of skills or through completion of a master's degree in family health nursing, there is, clearly, a long way to go until all nurses who make up the USF have the title of specialists in ESF, in order to comply with Decree-Law 73/2017, Article 7 of paragraph 4.