The Positive Directions of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Offer to the Managers of Primary Healthcare Services in Brazil

The World Health Organization advocates the insertion of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in their member countries’ national health system.  However its introduction in the Brazilian Unified Health System (UHS) has happened in a slow way, even taking into account a CAM National Policy, since 2006, and the positive directions about CAM pointed by the coordinators of primary healthcare services (PHS). The aim of this work is to analyse the positive aspects attributed to the CAM offer by the managers of the PHS of the Brazilian UHS. It was carried out 233 interviews, by telephone, with coordinators of PHS from the 20 municipalities of the ninth biggest Brazilian metropolitan region (Campinas, Sâo Paulo), that adds more than 3 millions of inhabitants. The speeches of 117 coordinators of PHS services that offer CAM were analysed by thematic content. Those who were interviewed emphasized that there are positive senses of the CAM offer in the PHS to patients, especially in relation to: a) the improvement of the physical aspects related to the illnesses and chronic pains; b) the emotional aspects, with the improvement of the self-esteem; c) the enlargement of the autonomy, promoting the self-care; d) a consequent reduction of the medicine consumption and reduction of the demand of consultations with professionals. We conclude that the CAM introduction is timid in the PHS in Brazil, although their managers put forward positive senses to the offer. It was concluded, also, that the positivity of CAM offer may produce individual and collective changes that may create new care perspectives and sociability, which can change the basis of the conventional care developed in the primary healthcare services of the Brazilian Unified Health System.