Background: Elderly mental health is an important topic of discussion to Brazilian public health because it involves factors related to the training of health professionals focused on these demands in the Family Health Strategy.
Objectives: To make a similarity analysis about the training of the Family Health Strategy professionals for psychosocial care for the elderly.
Methodology: Qualitative research carried out with 31 professionals from the Family Health Strategy in the city of Picos, Piauí, Brazil. Data were collected through a semi-structured interview script. The interviews were performed in a reserved room and recorded with the aid of an MP4 player. The data were processed by the IRAMUTEQ software and analyzed through similarity analysis that is based on graph theory.
Results: The study participants were 13 doctors and 18 nurses, 27 (87.09%) were female. The training time of these professionals was comprised between 2 to 32 years of training and the duration of the Health Strategy from 1 year to 16 years. According to the co-occurrence tree, the data indicate that: the word “elderly” is at the heart of the ramifications and expresses how family and professionals can contribute to treatment; another demonstrated representation is that it is difficult for professionals to carry out their activities with the elderly due to lack of training in the specific area of mental health.
Conclusion: the family plays a fundamental role in the elderly care with psychosocial needs and the professionals of the Family Health Strategy present difficulties to carry out comprehensive care due to deficiencies in their training.
Keywords: Mental health. Family Health. Elderly.
from International Archives of Medicine