Social representations of community-acquired infection by primary care professionals Representações sociais da infecção comunitária por profissionais da atenção primária

Abstract Objective: Understand the social representations formulated by primary health care professionals in relation to community-acquired infection and analyze how these representations influence infection control and quality of care.Methods: Exploratory, qualitative research conducted among 16 health professionals, selected by simple sampling. For data collection, a semi-structured form was used. The data were processed and analyzed by Descending Hierarchical Classification.Results: Four classes were obtained: Primary health care in the management of community-acquired infections; the role of health education in infection prevention and control; the concept of community-acquired infection and risk factors; prevention and control measures for community-acquired infections.Conclusion: The social representations of community-acquired infection are organized on the basis of professional practice, in which participants recognize the difficulties in conceptualizing the term, and list risk factors and prevention and control measures, reflecting on the quality of care provided.