Representações Sociais da Saúde para Profissionais do Sexo

The aim of the study was to understand the social representations of women sex workers on health. The present research is a descriptive exploratory study, with a qualitative approach. 12 participants were interviewed, in a situation of prostitution, living in the southern region of Santa Catarina. The study instruments were associative network and semi-structured interview. The data were submitted to the Simple Descending Hierarchical Classification, performed using the IRAMUTEQ software. The corpus was divided into 7 classes, named: “Fear of HIV”, “Threat”, “State of health”, “Experiences”, “Doctor”, “Condom” and “Habits”. The results pointed out ambiguity between the terms health and disease for sex professionals, with health practices adopted only in extreme situations and anchored in childhood care experiences. STIs and HIV were widely cited as a label attributed to the profession, objectified in the figure of the prostitute. The need for health education programs for sex workers to promote health, awareness of protection methods and knowledge of existing STIs is identified.