Abstract

ALVES, Fulvia Cristina do Carmo; BRANDAO, Marileny Boechat Frauches  and  BACELAR JUNIOR, Arilton Januário. The medicalization of childhood in contemporary times: an integrative review. Mental [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.24, pp.1-25. ISSN 1679-4427.

Children can develop mental and behavioral disorders and the use of psychotropic drugs is one of the treatment possibilities for such disorders. However, it has been identified, nowadays, an increase in the prescription of psychotropic drugs, often for non-medical problems. This phenomenon is understood as medicalization. This work refers to a survey of articles that address child medicalization in the last 10 years. This is an integrative review study, carried out in the database of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior CAPES), in 2019. As search refinement criteria, the descriptors medicalization, education and child were used, peer-reviewed articles published in Portuguese and English. The final sample consisted of 12 articles, which addressed the subject as the main theme identified in the title, reading of the abstracts and their introduction. After reading, the articles were organized in an analytical framework, identifying the theoretical framework adopted and how the theme was presented in the texts. The mapping made it possible to identify problematizations about childhood, hegemony of the biological view on human behavior, the influence of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry, the banalization and epidemic of child diagnosis and how medicalization is manifested in the school context. It also allowed for reflections on the relationship between school and child medicalization. It is concluded that there is a need for studies that investigate medicalization from the point of view of children, and that establish a dialogue between the fields of Psychology, Medicine and Education.

Keywords : Medication; Education; Child.

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