ATENÇÃO EM SAÚDE MENTAL: A PRÁTICA DO ENFERMEIRO E DO MÉDICO DO PROGRAMA SAÚDE DA FAMÍLIA DE CAUCAIA-CE

This study objectifies to analyze nursing and doctor practice in the Family Health Program (abbreviated PSF in Portuguese) regarding mental health under the perspective of the Psychiatric Reform. It is as descriptive study, qualitave in nature, accomplished with seven nurses and five doctors of Caucaia municipality in Ceara State/Brazil. Data were collected through a semistructured interview and free observation from May to July/ 2003. After being grouped in categories and sub-categories, the results show that nurses and doctors of PSF carry out their actions according in logic of the programming in heath, accomplishing the foreseen protocol. We observed that they feel a lot of difficulty for working appropriately with the demands of the attended community’s mental health, condition that become evident through some answers of the group, such as: the confused way that they define what is mental health; the use of the guiding as one of the main action strategies; inability recognition in the management of the community’s demands; ignorance and low use of the management of the community’s resources to act in preventive actions; restricted use of a sensitive listening and of the interpersonal relationship. Finally, it was possible to understand that the actions of mental health developed by the researched group are guided by the practice of the traditional psychiatry, in which the medicating and the guiding are the choice instruments. This condition not goes against that what the Psychiatric Reform foresees when it includes the actions of mental health among those developed in the primary attencion, creating a net pf attendance that has for objective to assist the community’s demands. KEY-WORDS: Mental Health; Family Health; Psychiatric Reform.