This research aims at analysing the beliefs of Health Community Agents (HCA) from a city of Minas Gerais, Brazil, regarding Domestic Violence (DV) against children and adolescents. Research participants were all 30 municipal HCA who, at first, answered a self-administered, structured, particular and anonymous questionnaire. Later on, the HCA were invited to participate in a Focus Group. Qualitative data were then analyzed using the content analysis technique. The data indicated a strong tendency of respondents to consider alcohol and drugs as generators of DV against children and adolescents, as well as intra-family and relationship problems (lack of love and affection, lack of dialogue, lack of attention and lack of a family structure, for example). These results make clear the need to think about effective interventions at the institutional level because, in that specific searched space, neither a specific project to prevent and combat DV nor a policy aimed at training the HCA to deal with this sort of problem were developed.
Family violence; focus groups; beliefs