Home Care in Mental Health Held by Psychology Trainees in the Care Intensification Program

Abstract

This study investigates home care, taking the household as the locus of care for people with a mental disorder, in the perspective of the family members followed by Psychology trainees of the Care Intensification Program (PIC). It is a qualitative research with a case study design which also considers home as a meeting of the technical-scientific knowledge with the family knowledge, a center of tensions and bonding dynamics.
Semi-structured interviews were held with the family members assisted in 2010, in order to assess PIC, and the analysis of the patient’s medical records to contextualize the assistance service between 2004 and 2008. One concludes the interviewees acknowledge PIC as a successful possibility of care in mental health, in the process of deinstitutionalization of madness, because as it points out many benefits, both for the patients and their families. The home care and the technologies employed by PIC are acknowledged as providers of client’s autonomy, resulting in an expansion of their care network, when they get into the Psychosocial Care Center (Caps).