The scope of the study was to examine the communication practices of nurses in consultation of arterial hypertension in the Family Health Program in Fortaleza, Ceará, revealing the elements that cause asymmetry of power between nurses and the hypertensive individuals verbal expression. The theoretical references are Critical Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics. This is an exploratory descriptive and qualitative study, in which participant observation was conducted in a Basic Family Health Unit. The following discourses arose: the nurse as conductor of the interaction with verbal and nonverbal discursive commands; the hypertensive subject as subjugated by the nurse; the nurse as an articulated instrument that communicates a body of social practice; the body of the hypertensive person as a tool that supports an imaginary power load; the interaction between nurse and the hypertensive person in a one-sided situation, obliging the hypertensive individual to obey orders. The relationship between the nurse and the hypertensive person develops asymmetrically, built on symbolic materials of social practices under the legitimacy of the paradigm of current Nursing Consultation in our society.
Hypertension; Nursing consultation; Communication and pragmatic
