Abstract

FERRAZZA, Daniele de Andrade; ROCHA, Luiz Carlos da  and  LUZIO, Cristina Amélia. Medicalization in a mental health public service: a study on the psychotropic prescription. Gerais, Rev. Interinst. Psicol. [online]. 2013, vol.6, n.2, pp.255-265. ISSN 1983-8220.

News of the fifth version of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) bringing an enlarged listing of diagnostic possibilities has fomented discussion concerning the tendency, recognizable in contemporary psychiatric practices, of including ordinary suffering of everyday life in psychiatric diagnosis and submit same to psychopharmacological treatment. The present paper brings to this discussion data obtained from field research about the prescription of psychopharmacs in the psychiatric care of a public mental health service. The results reveal that the psychiatry of the service keeps practically all of its users under prescription, and that medical discharge is extremely rare. The paper organizes elements critical to this practice and concludes that due to its inadequacy as to the objectives of promotion of personalized care concerned with autonomy and citizenship, present in the current national guidelines for public policies in mental health

Keywords : Mental health; Mental health services; Medicalization.

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