Construction and transformation of social representations of AIDS and implications for health care.

OBJECTIVES to analyze the process of the constitution and evolution of social representations and practices referent to aids, based on studies carried out in the last eleven years among health professionals. METHOD a comparison of representational structures of aids in different decades was undertaken, accompanied by a study of the silent zone, involving health professionals. Data collection and analysis included techniques of free association, structural analysis, and study of the silent zone. RESULTS the existence of a process of change was observed in the social representations of aids, with the introduction of the possibility of co-existence with the disease and the reduction of the importance of death. CONCLUSIONS this process is presented as the result of a complex movement of symbolic constructions arising from human interactions, contributing to knowledge of ways of thinking associated with the syndrome and to professional practices in healthcare.