COMPREHENSIVE CARE IN THE CONTEXT OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE (PHC) IN LIGHT OF EMERSON MERHY'S PROPOSALS

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the predominant care technologies in the daily practices of Primary Health Care (PHC), understand how the combination of these technologies contributes to building comprehensive care, and discuss the contributions of Emerson Merhy's theoretical framework within the context of Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS). It is an integrative review with a qualitative approach, including ten studies selected based on defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, following the PICo strategy. The data were critically analyzed through the lens of the micropolitics of living labor in health, as proposed by Merhy. The results revealed that light technologies—such as qualified listening, welcoming, and bond-building—are central to PHC professionals' routine practices, although they remain undervalued compared to the predominance of hard and light-hard technologies. It was found that achieving comprehensive care requires the articulation of different care technologies, emphasizing the relational dimension of work processes. Merhy’s theory was essential to understanding care as an ethical, aesthetic, and political act, produced in the encounter between worker and user. The study concludes that to consolidate comprehensiveness in the SUS, it is necessary to reorient both training processes and management models, recognizing the territory as a living space for care and promoting practices that value autonomy and local knowledge.