Discomfort and unease of the subject in the interpretation movement of a Tuberculosis questionnaire

OBJECTIVE: to propose a discussion about traces of the derivation of meanings, the subjects' discomfort and resistance when they are called upon to signify a questionnaire on the transfer of the Directly Observed Treatment of Tuberculosis policy, in order to reveal the limitations of closed questionnaires in the subject's interpretation process. METHOD: health professionals from a Primary Health Care Unit in Porto Alegre/RS were interviewed and some excerpts from the interviews were investigated in the light of French Discourse Analysis. RESULTS: resistance, discomfort, slips, silencing and the derivation of meanings were observed in the subjects' interpretation. CONCLUSION: the interpretation process has multiple meanings and varies from subject to subject. The questionnaire, as a prototype of the logically stabilized universe, fails when the purpose is to control the interpretation. Its isolated use in health research can entail inexactness or incompleteness of the collected data. Therefore, its use associated with qualitative research techniques is ideal.