Gerais : Revista Interinstitucional de Psicologia
ISSN 1983-8220
CIRILO NETO, Mauricio DIMENSTEIN, Magda. Challenges for mental health care in rural contexts. Gerais, Rev. Interinst. Psicol. []. 2021, 14, 1, pp.1-26. ISSN 1983-8220. https://doi.org/10.36298/gerais202114e15627.
Mental health care for rural populations is a problem faced on a global scale, however, it is absent from major public policies aimed at social welfare. Although some advances have occurred in the country with the implementation of the National Mental Health Policy and with the paradigmatic, practical and ethical change arising from the referential of Psychosocial Attention, the socio-territorial and cultural specificities that mark the rural contexts are not yet part of the scope of these policies. Thus, the objective is to discuss the main challenges for mental health care identified by professionals who make up reference teams for agrarian reform settlements. For this purpose, 53 health and social care professional responsible for the coverage of eight rural settlements were interviewed. We identified that the challenges refer to the establishment of health networks connected to the territories; the consolidation of primary care as the main care strategy; the construction of practices from the perspective of completeness; the implementation of intersectoral articulations that meet the complexity of the population's demands and, finally, opportunities for permanent education for workers, so that they take into account the particularities of these contexts and the ways of life of the rural population.
: Psychosocial attention; Mental health; Rural populations; Primary care.