Abstract

Introduction:  Self-care is an important strategy for military firefighters to preserve their health in a work activity involving daily insecurity and stress.

Objective:  To identify military firefighters' perceptions about their work's health repercussions. Methodology: This is qualitative research, conducted in the framework of the Convergent Care Research developed through participant observation, focus groups, workshops, and collective interviews with 34 military firefighters from a battalion located in Southern Brazil. The data obtained were subjected to thematic analysis.

Results:  There were three final themes: ''Strategies for self-care and health promotion for professional firefighters''and ''Repercussions of work on self-care''. The analysis of the data from the collective interviews included the theme ''Points of convergence: research as a promoter of self-care''. Conclusion: Although participants are aware of the strategies that contribute to their self-care, they also emphasize the negative repercussions that work has had on their health.

Key Words: Self-Care; Firefighters; Nursing; Work