Occupational therapy, the production of health care and the place occupied by the hospital: thoughts about the constitution of a field of knowledge and practice

Abstract

This paper intends to argue about the existence of a specific field of occupational therapy in hospital care and its relation to the production of knowledge and practice regarding health care. Through the debate on the concept of field by Bourdieu and by Campos, Chakour e Santos, the article seeks to discuss the production of health care as a dynamic, interdisciplinary and structured field, constituted by institutional relationships, professional core group, other inner groups and social agents. The considerations above lead to the need of thinking the place of the hospital and its practices within the field of health care, in which occupational therapy takes part. Though, the disciplinary and interdisciplinary practices undertaken in the hospital should not be thought outside the major social context inasmuch as there is an intent to construct practices and knowledge out of the integrality (comprehensiveness) of health care, taking into account the hospital as a 'care station'. Presenting the proposal of hospitalar administration following 'care lines', a concept devised by Cecílio and Mehry, the paper proposes the use of the concept as a means of organization of practices and knowledge in the production of health care and in occupational therapy, in favour of practices which effectively come to be based on integrality and the humanization of health care.