CHALLENGES IN PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE TO USERS OF PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES BY COMMUNITY HEALTH AGENTS IN THE TERRITORY
Primary Health Care. Community Health Workers. Mental Health. Damage Reduction. Drugs. Institutional Analysis.
Since the history of mankind, human beings have used psychoactive substances and, as this is a complex topic involving multiple factors, it is the object of analysis in many fields of knowledge. It is pertinent to consider that this issue also affects the Unified Health System (SUS) and, in turn, contemplated its most varied levels of health care with the demand related to the use and abuse of psychoactive substances. As it is a vast universe, this research aims to understand how Community Health Agents (CHA) in Primary Health Care provide care to users who make harmful use of psychoactive substances in a municipality in the Trairi region of Large northern river. Therefore, it is directed to the narratives of eight CHAs working in two Family Health Strategy teams. We chose the intervention research, with a qualitative approach, from the theoretical methodological framework of Institutional Analysis. The period in which the activities with the CHAs were developed took place between August and September 2021. Data were produced from three instruments: conversation circle, individual interviews and a research diary. In all, 08 individual interviews and 01 conversation circle were carried out. As for the diary, it was prepared during the experiences described above as a potential for analysis and reflection in the on-site meetings in the research. With regard to the analysis of the data produced, important concepts from the theoretical framework of Institutional Analysis will be applied. Finally, as a result, there was a low demand in the Basic Health Unit for users of psychoactive substances; valorization of the biomedical model and medicalization; hospitalization in therapeutic communities as one of the best possibilities for care; low planning in the provision of individual care and limited coverage of intersectoral articulation.