Social representations of citizenship by inpatients: implications for hospital care.

OBJECTIVE examine the social representations of citizenship by inpatients receiving hospital care. METHOD qualitative approach, using the Theory of Social Representations as a framework, with 31 inpatients in the internal medicine sector of a public university hospital. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, whose data were submitted to the Alceste program, with application of lexical analysis. RESULTS patients understand their rights, and citizenship in the care process is understood based on the right to health, to receive good care from a technical and human standpoint. CONCLUSION being well treated as a person and the provision of technical-procedural care are rights of patients; the absence of one or the other implies, therefore, lack of respect for their citizenship.