This is an exploratory study on views of various social players in the Brazilian Family Health Program, concerning the right to privacy in the relationship between users of the program and community health agents (CHA). The following healthcare professionals were interviewed: heads of basic healthcare units, physicians, nurses and community health agents, working at health units in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2002. Healthcare professionals and managers agreed that limits should be placed on access by CHAs to certain user information, including diagnosis. The study showed that frequent contact between users and CHAs results in users' disclosure of their health conditions to CHAs prior to consulting other professionals in the healthcare team. This generates the following ethical issue: Is there any specific scope of confidentiality between the CHA and users over information that should not be disclosed to other team members?
Bioethics; Institutional Ethics; Privacy