Interdisciplinarity in work process at a Psychosocial Attention Center - doi:10.5020/18061230.2010.p221

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the work process of mental health professionals from a Psychosocial Attention Center (CAPS), from the knowledge and the practices applied in the production of care and its interface with user’s demands and the service offering. Methods: A case study with qualitative approach. Twenty-eight subjects joined in and were divided into three groups: I (eleven mental health workers), II (eleven users) e III (six family members). The semistructured interview was used besides systematic observation, in the search for data about the work process of the professionals of the Psychosocial Attention Center, the relationship between team and user, offering and demand, access, technologies of care, knowledge and practices and interdisciplinarity. The investigation was based upon critical content analysis and was oriented by the flowchart analyzer. Results: The service organization and its work process are directed to the immediate supply of the population’s demands, which depicts a care based on prescriptive practices. Thus, the flow of assistance and the service offering complement each other in the need of a procedure and in its exhaustive offering by the service, dissolving interdisciplinary conductions of intervention shared with the user. Conclusion: Mental health care is still surrounded by biomedical hegemony centered in procedures directed to pharmacological prescription. Despite this reality, the work centered on the user and the utilization of soft technologies – communication, link, welcoming – begin to take part of the daily CAPS service offering, although it is only present in specific activities of certain procedures.