[Social representations of women submitted to mastectomy and the implications for self-care]

The purposes of this research was to identify the social representations of women on breast mastectomy and to analyze the implications of these social representations to care for self-care. This is a qualitative study using the Theory of Social Representations as theoretical reference. For data collection it was employed two techniques: the free association of ideas and observation. For data analysis the thematic analysis was used. The research resulted in two thematic units: the breast and its representations of social change in the body and social representations of women mastectomy: implications for self care. In the study, showed that women objected care of the breasts through the realization of self-examination.