Abstract

MIRANDA, Francisco Arnoldo Nunes de  and  FUREGATO, Antonia Regina Ferreira. Social representations of psychiatric nursing actions in daily life. Psicol. teor. prat. [online]. 2004, vol.6, n.spe, pp. 67-78. ISSN 1516-3687.

This research aimed to picture the daily actions of nursing professionals and their social representations in the institutional psychiatric context. We used a projective instrument (TSC) with 16 scenes that picture nurses’ actions in the institutional context. Subjects were 17 clinical nurses from five psychiatric institutions in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, and 17 nurses who are doctoral students in Psychiatric Nursing, attending to all ethical criteria. Data were submitted to content analysis and to ALCESTE’s lexical analysis, based on the theoretical framework of social representations. Results demonstrate that the nurse deals with the mental patient, using tools mediated by technical, interpersonal, interactional and institutional relations. Considering the permanency and diversities in their actions, we observe the nurses’ distancing from the central object of their work, which are the mental patients. Peripheral elements sustain their position. These results give rise to polemic social representations, mediated by the implicit theory of cognitive dissonance.

Keywords : Nursing; Mental health; Social representations.

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