"Pressure problems" in Guariroba/Brazil: an anthropological approach to chronic cardiovascular diseases

This article, driving from Anthropology, presents ethnographic data elaborated in Guariroba, a neighborhood in the capital of Brazil. Between 2008 and 2014, dwellers, usually in their sixties, migrants and blue-collar workers, shared their perceptions on what they called high blood pressure and pressure problems, how they felt, explained and treated them. A very significant relation between pressure and nerves was clearly stated and helps clarify health professionals and also researchers in dealing with cardiovascular diseases. I suggest this relation can improve clinical and pharmaceutical practice and also the scientific results on hypertension. Knowing the perceptions from first person perspective, from those who live with long and chronic illnesses, is a relevant measure to strategically modulate actions of prevention and care.