[Social representations of women who live with high blood pressure]

The Arterial Hypertension is considered as a serious Public Health problem that affects most of the world population and presents difficulties to control.This study dealt with the social representations of the women carriers of Arterial Hypertension about what it is like to be carriers of the disease in the family context, and the health services provided by the professionals that care for them and exploring the psychosocial aspects related to their feelings and behavior that might interfere in their treatment and control of the disease. It was performed in Teresina - PI with 25 women assisted in the Health Center. The data collected was organized in a "corpus" and submitted to the ALCESTE software 4.5, which produced three initial context units, showing the manifestations and feelings of the carriers. The social representations influence the process of knowledge production and circulation that guide and define the behavior and conducts of the hypertensive disease carrier.