The community health agent and mental health: perceptions and actions in mental health people attention / O agente comunitário de saúde e a saúde mental: percepções e ações na atenção às pessoas em sofrimento mental

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The introduction of Mental Health Team (MHT) in the Family Health Program (FHP) is recent and restricted to a few places. The knowledge about MHT activities in the FHP is limited and so are the Community Health Agents (CHA) actions in mental health area. From this perspective, the present qualitative research aimed to examine the CHA conceptions about mental illness people and identify their actions after discovering people with this kind of illness in their work area. The research was based on the Family Health Program strategies, Brazilian Psychiatric Reform and Vulnerability. The data were collected from individual and semi-structured interviews with twelve CHA of Family Health Center (FHC) in the Southwest regions of São Paulo City. Two thematic centers were identified through thematic analysis: the mental illness identification and the CHA actions in FHP mental health attention. The conceptions about mental illness were connected to its forms of identification , causes and treatments. The CHA identified mental illness situations through peoples solicitations, community information and observation of peoples behaviour. Among some mental illness causes, the CHA emphasize the socioeconomic conditions, characterized by a poor life and violence. The CHA actions in mental health area are: to complete and deepen information about families whose members suffer from any mental illness , to share them with Family Health Team and Mental Health Team, and to take part in formulation and execution of family attention strategies. For CHA these strategies involve, mainly, use of medicine and performance of activities (job, study, walking etc.). The CHA referred to the emergence of feelings during the mental illness people attention process,, such as: fear of physical aggression, wrong actions and difficulties in dealing with suffering people, which can make it difficult. The CHA suggest that there is more education and technical support in the development of their job. In conclusion, the CHA conceptions about mental illness guide the identification of people with this problem, mainly people who do not spontaneously seek for health service help. Living in the same place where they work, give the CHA a special knowledge about family context, which contributes a lot in strategy action formulation. For their actions in promoting and giving attention to mental illness people and their families, the CHA can be considered Brazilian Psychiatric Reform entrepreneurs. So, mental health actions could be widely performed all over Brazil

ASSUNTO(S)

saúde mental family health program community health agent agente comunitário de saúde mental health programa saúde da família

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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