Comprehensive health care, adherence to ART and the political-affective developments of living with HIV/AIDS among Brazilian women

The article addresses considerations emerging from intervention research aimed at understanding the meanings of living and the political-affective consequences of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among Brazilian women living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Adopting the Cartographic Method (Deleuze; Guattari, 1995), interviews and group meetings were used as tools, problematizing the tension between the macropolitics expressed in public policies and care practices in health units and the micropolitics undertaken by each of the women to live better. As a result, women highlighted the challenges they faced in the programmatic, social, family, love, sexual, racial, and gender spheres, developing a critical look at the care received in health services and highlighting the need for health professionals and policies to incorporate the dimension of affection as a means of promoting health. It was concluded that comprehensive care for women living with HIV/AIDS requires changes in professional practices that allow the intensive resonance of shared affections in the construction of health care, creating relational territories that recognize the tension inherent to subjective differences and strengthen the implementation of Singular Therapeutic Project including families. Brazilian health professionals in Primary and Specialized Care need to experience Continuing Health Education processes to make this possible.

Keywords:
HIV; Primary Health Care; Health Vulnerability; Comprehensive Health Care.