This study aims to survey integrality from the perspective of physiotherapists in a medium-sized town. The research was carried out through self-administered questionnaires to professionals, and in-depth interviews with six of them. For data treatment, we used content analysis, through which six different integrality faces emerged: the holistic face (viewing the patient as a whole), the enlarged face (emphasizing the social context and determinants of health-disease), the interdisciplinary face (interdisciplinary view contrasted to its absence in practice), the hidden face (lack of knowledge about the term; traces of integrality within daily practice), the fragmented face (mechanical view of the body), the null face (lack of knowledge; indifference). Such faces point to the need for adopting more integral practices by physiotherapists at private and public healthcare services. Therefore, professional education and permanent, continuing education are highlighted as two of the dimensions that characterize a socially constructed professional practice.
Integrality; Physiotherapy; National Health System; Professional Education; Qualitative research