Significado da prática social do enfermeiro com e a partir do Sistema Único de Saúde brasileiro.

The purpose of this work is to facilitate a look into the professional role of nurses working with and through Brazil's Unified Health Care System, and to understand the significance of their social practice in this field of theoretical-practical discussions and meanings. The grounded theory was used as a methodological framework, and interviews were conducted to collect the data. A total of 35 health care professionals were interviewed between May and December 2007. The analysis of the data showed the Unified Health Care System can be considered a facilitating and stimulating strategy in the process to expand and consolidate nursing care as a social practice, inasmuch as it signals a new approach to social intervention based on valuing the person as a unique and multidimensional being immersed in a real and specific context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]