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Quality of life from women’s perspective in the exercise of sex work: a study of social representations

Calidad de vida de las mujeres en el trabajo sexual: estudio de las representaciones sociales

ABSTRACT

Objectives:

to analyze the social representations elaborated by sex workers from Alto Sertão Produtivo Baiano about quality of life.

Methods:

a qualitative study, based on the Social Representation Theory, carried out in the region of Alto Sertão Produtivo Baiano, with 30 sex workers. Individual in-depth interview was carried out, with speeches organized in a corpus and treated in IRAMUTEQ, enabling lexical analysis for Descending Hierarchical Classification.

Results:

four thematic classes emerged, in which social representations of quality of life pervade: money earned to supply needs; association with healthy living and obtaining health (physical and mental); balance of emotions (although there are some negative sensations such as fear and anxiety); and faith in a deity.

Final Considerations:

the social representations elaborated by sex workers about quality of life are anchored in concepts, subjective and practical, punctuated by the World Health Organization.

Descriptors:
Quality of Life; Sex Workers; Sex Work; Women’s Health; Nursing

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