Compartilhamento online de informações em saúde: uso do aplicativo “Whatsapp” como estratégia de educação em saúde direcionada para o conhecimento da síndrome metabólica

Abstract

Metabolic Syndrome (MS) is a disorder associated with multiple states of health problems with high prevalence in the adult population worldwide, especially in developing countries such as Brazil. In view of this, lifestyle modification and weight loss should be considered as the first step in preventing or treating MS. However, people prone to developing MS, notably those with excess weight, are resistant to adhering to one or more of the self-care recommendations, such as medication use, physical activity, and healthy eating. Studies have shown that these people's lack of knowledge about the risk and protective factors of MS contribute to non-adherence to a healthy lifestyle and evoke the need to develop more effective health education strategies. As the process of building knowledge in groups has proved to be more effective than that carried out individually, the use of health education strategies based on socialization networks has been increasingly suggested. As the WhatsApp application is configured as the main platform for online socialization, it can be hypothesized that the construction of groups in this application to discuss obesity and SM can subsidize a fruitful environment for the training of people on the subject. Therefore, this thesis aims to analyze how the online sharing of health information contributes to the learning about MS. To this end, three studies were developed: Study I: aimed at the development of an instrument to measure adult's degree of knowledge about MS; Study II: developed to assess which factors are predominant in determining knowledge about MS; Study III: developed to understand the use of the WhatsApp application to improve SM learning. The results obtained in this thesis confirm the usability hypothesis of the WhatsApp application for health education purposes on the theme of MS and implement theoretical foundations for the discussion of the adoption of information and communication technologies in health promotion strategies carried out within the scope of of primary health care in the Brazilian Unified Health System.