Vulnerability and strategies for adherence to tuberculosis treatment: primary care nurses’ discourse

Objective: to identify nurses' strategies to enhance adherence of patients on tuberculosis treatment in the face of their vulnerabilities to dropout. Method: a descriptive study of qualitative approach, carried out with 13 nurses from Primary Health Care in a municipality of Ceara, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews were used and submitted to the Collective Subject Discourse technique. Result: the vulnerabilities to dropout were: health conditions; behavioral aspects; lack of housing, money, and family support; and lack of encouragement from health professionals. The strategies to enhance adherence were: health education; welcoming and co-responsibility; search for absentees, monitoring of tests and treatment adherence, and interdisciplinarity and intersectoriality. Conclusion: the nurses used strategies to enhance treatment adherence focusing on the care and educational dimensions in face of the patients' vulnerabilities. Need to expand the strategy of directly observed treatment to reduce dropout.