[Health promotion and primary care for people with chronic non-transmissible diseases].

Objective: Understand the health promotion practices developed by primary health care nurses in a southern county of Brazil, in the care of people with chronic non-communicable diseases.

Method: Qualitactive research, developed by multiple speeches, in twenty three health centers of a southern county of Brazil.

Results: According to speeches, the health promotion practices developed by nurses refer to two main fields, of the five action fields proposed by the Ottawa Letter: reorientation of the health system and developing personal abilities. It appeared as a speech, related to the central idea about the limits to developing fields of the Ottawa letter.

Conclusions: Besides the efforts spent to develop health promotion practices, these appear in some moments in an amplified way, thinking in a new logic to Health promotion and in other situations it shows itself in a more restrictive way, returning to a more traditional practice.