Conhecendo as experiências de famílias cuidadoras de pessoas com transtornos mentais graves

Abstract

Introduction: With the implementation of the Psychiatric Reform in Brazil, caring families began to be valued and had significant visibility, becoming one of the main protagonists/support in the treatment, in the psychosocial rehabilitation processes of their family members with severe mental disorders. Objectives: The main objective of this work is to understand the experiences of caregiver families in the daily care of their family members with severe mental disorders (schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder). In relation to the specific objectives: to identify the possible difficulties faced by families in the care provided to their relatives with serious mental disorders and the repercussions of these on the daily lives of caregivers; Investigate the existence or not of losses in the areas of occupational performance of families, which are associated with the role of caregivers and its repercussions on their daily lives and outline the actions developed by the multidisciplinary team of the Psychosocial Care Center – CAPS for care in mental health of families caring for people with mental disorders. Methods: this is a descriptive-exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, a semi-structured interview was used as a data collection instrument. To analyze the collected material, the methodological steps of thematic content analysis were followed (Minayo, 2008). The research was carried out at CAPS III Dr. Gutemberg Botelho, in João Pessoa-PB. Data collection took place in July and August 2023. Four family caregivers of people with serious mental disorders actually participated in the research. The following aspects were considered as inclusion criteria for study participants: acceptance to contribute to the research; performance in the role of family caregiver for at least two years; existence of kinship ties (father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandfather/grandmother, cousin). Regarding the exclusion criteria, situations were considered in which caregiving families did not agree to participate in the aforementioned research, or when any of the inclusion criteria were not met. The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee (CCS/UFPB), with Opinion number: 6.143.60. Results: Three female family caregivers and one male caregiver, aged between 31 and 86 years, participated in the research. Three main categories emerged: Category 1: Difficulties faced by families in the mental health care of their family members with mental disorders and the repercussions of these difficulties on their daily lives, Category 2: Losses in the areas of occupational performance and their repercussions on the daily lives of family caregivers and Category 3: actions developed by the CAPS multidisciplinary team for family caregivers of people with mental disorders). Discussion: The psychotic crisis situations of their family members with mental disorders were the biggest difficulties that caregivers faced in providing care; They present losses in two important areas of occupational performance: sleep and leisure; We identified that there are no mental health actions developed by the CAPS multidisciplinary team specifically aimed at family caregivers. The care is, in fact, concentrated on users with mental disorders. Conclusion: The research highlighted a context of multiple challenges, losses and difficulties faced by caregivers in the daily care offered to their family members with serious mental disorders. It was evident that there was no support from the multidisciplinary team also focused on caring for families.