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From a case report of a person with pedophilic disorder, this paper focuses on the issue of pedophilia, child sexual abuse, and the need for specific prevention and treatment strategies in Brazil. It seems inevitable to increase awareness for this topic within the mental health care system to protect children and reduce the risk for sexual offense in individuals at-risk. This is a case report of an individual, known by medical-psychiatric and forensic facilities for a past history of patricide, who revealed his pedophilic fantasies and behavior belatedly. To assess a pedophilic disorder and screen for other paraphilic contents, a screening questionnaire and clinical interview were used during the patient hospitalization in 2020 for a proper evaluation of sexual history and past offending behaviors. A review of the literature on pedophilia prevention programs was also carried out. WW is a middle-aged man admitted to a psychiatric unit for a severe episode of major depressive disorder and at risk of suicide. During recovery, he reported pedophilic fantasies and behaviors in his life. Sexual fantasies involving children and actual sexual offenses have remained unknown to mental health professionals and unreported to legal authorities. WW's case alarmingly emphasizes the need for the training of health care professionals and for preventive strategies in Brazil for those who are at risk of engaging in offending sexual behaviors in a combined and intensive effort to protect children from sexual offense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an alarming rise in suicide attempts among Indigenous people in Brazil, leading to national concerns about the provision of psychosocial care and professional support. In this study, we make an attempt to understand the perspectives of professionals in assisting Indigenous people from a specific group, the Inỹ, and identify the specific challenges of addressing issues through the mental health care system related specifically to suicide prevention. Using a qualitative approach with participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the research included Indigenous and their families assisted by three public institutions and the professionals that work in public psychosocial assistance. For this paper, we examined the tensions, conflicts, and challenges of the healthcare professionals at one of these institutions, a Psychosocial Care Center in the state of Goiás/Brazil. For data analysis, a sociocultural protocol was built to identify dialogical tensions between the different thematic fields of mental health care. The findings reveal that the theme of suicide was an important concern in the daily work with the community. Still, there were significant issues related to the assumptions, methodology, and meaning of care between the professionals and the community, on account of which the objective of the programme to address suicide attempts had not been effective or successful. The discussion of the results raises several critical questions about the possible contributions of dialogical cultural psychology in the context of Indigenous health. Also, it has important implications for the global issue of the wellbeing of Indigenous people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health and mental health of necessary entrepreneurs in Brasilian favelas, the social problems they experienced and implications for public health social work. The study used structured in-person interviews within selected Favela's, with a sample size of 721 entrepreneurs, aged between 16–70 years. All participants both worked and were resident in 15 out of the 27 Brasilian federal states. The bespoke questions explored socio-demographic questions, sought information on their entrepreneurship, health and administered the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale for Health. The results highlighted that many entrepreneurs have engaged in this form of enterprise due to economic necessity, with 64% of women and 43.6% of men identifying increased levels of anxiety through the pandemic, with the presence of children in the family being statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05 chi-square test) for anxiety. Of the 9.8% sample respondents have accessed the health care service and for women with children, the impact of the pandemic accentuated existing problems of childcare and patriarchy. We conclude by highlighting the importance of universal and accessible health and mental health support and care, their ongoing accessibility, along with the importance of social work during crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the mechanisms through which the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic impacts on well-being at work and on productivity. The secondary objective is to identify stress management strategies for the work environment during the pandemic. This is an integrative review. Phase 1 consisted of searches of open access electronic databases (MEDLINE, SciELO, Bireme, and LILACS) for papers published in 2020 addressing mental health, work, and pandemics. Phase 2 consisted of selecting literature recommended by specialists in occupational psychiatry and positive psychology. These materials were read and critically analyzed. Forty references were included in the literature review. The articles reviewed were classified into the following categories: articles concerning work relationships in Brazil; articles describing the impact of pandemics on mental health and work; articles focusing on the work of health professionals during pandemics; articles about well-being at work; and papers proposing strategies to improve well-being and productivity and to promote mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic can have a significant impact on workers' mental health and productivity. Most professionals face a need to adapt to changes, which can decrease their feeling of well-being. Consequently, strategies to promote well-being and mental health in the work environment should be a priority. Work routines were modified after the COVID-19 pandemic set in and assessing these changes is essential to maintain workers' mental health. By so doing, it is possible to promote general well-being and post-traumatic recovery and reduce stress levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Brazilian psychiatric reform has revolutionized the way that mental health care is provided all over the country, introducing the Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS) and encouraging care at liberty. The CAPS have been assigned many objectives, such as prevention of hospitalizations and intervention in crises or suicide. This paper aims to describe the correlation between the implementation of CAPS and the rates of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicides from 2008 to 2018. Methods: This study has an ecological time series design and included residents of the city of Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, who were hospitalized through the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). The data were obtained from official databases (DATASUS, CNES, and IBGE) and indicators were calculated (CAPS coverage, hospitalization rate, and suicide rate). Associations between the indicators were tested using Pearson's correlation coefficients. Results: We found a negative correlation between provision of CAPS and psychiatric hospitalizations (r = -0.607 p = 0.048). Conclusion: These results support the hypothesis that there is a negative correlation between implementation of the CAPS and psychiatric hospitalizations. This reinforces the importance of implementing policies related to improving psychiatric reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian mental health care reform understands mental health as a complex social process. There is a large literature production within the country focused on deinstitutionalization policy, social determinants of mental health and human rights, however, with little recognition beyond Latin American borders. In addition, cultural dimensions of mental suffering have been neglected in Brazilian debates which limits an expanded understanding of health care and users' inclusion. This paper aims to discuss the role of cultural determinants in mental health care in Brazil. We followed a patient in the city of Rio de Janeiro who opted for therapy based on her religious beliefs—using ayahuasca in the context of the Afro Brazilian religion of Umbanda—over the treatment-as-usual in mental health. We draw on the notions of autoatención (self, domestic, and group-care in lay contexts) and medical landscapes to examine how therapeutic negotiations reflect embodied cultural traits and both social and political determinants shaping therapeutic spaces. We argue that recognizing sociocultural differences and therapeutic negotiations are key elements in making a more inclusive health practice. Moreover, this recognition enables identifying and reasoning the broader social processes framing health practices. This debate is relevant to the Brazilian mental health context and to other scenarios, especially those where local and global knowledge and practices in mental health are entangled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents reflections from ethnographic data obtained during a master's degree research in a mental health service for immigrants, refugees and deaf people in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. During this research, I worked as a collaborating anthropologist for the service, and this was a dynamic and incessant process of invention and counter-invention as to what an anthropologist would do in a mental health service for people with what was defined as "linguistic and cultural vulnerabilities". From this, I present the logic of the machinery of production and assimilation (or not) of differences by separating the world between those who believe and those who know, or the premodern and the modern. Finally, I propose to populate these contexts and scenarios by anthropologists, taking seriously the symbolic dimensions in health contexts and producing data and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to discuss the public fund and the projects that dispute the expenses, the funding and the directions of Brazil's mental health policy, with focus on the analysis of federal government's budget. It consists of a bibliographic and documental review that utilizes secondary data, obtained from official federal government websites and researches on the social security budget, analyzed with the critic dialectic method. It is observed that the public funding is tensed by distinct interests, and it is no different on the mental health policy. From 2001 and on, the financing of the community based psychosocial attention services is made broader and the SUS healthcare model is strengthened, based on the anti-asylum Psychiatric Reform. However, since 2005, interests from corporate, religious and medical entities groups, among others, have gained strength on the political agenda and on the dispute for the public fund, putting in risk the historical conquers of the mental health, alcohol, and other drug's policy in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The current paper discusses the results of a study realized with 66 seekers of 12 psychosocial healthcare services (CAPS) in Brazil, by investigating their social representations. Aims: Throughout a quali-quantitative approach, unstructured interviews have been conducted and focused on two themes: one related to mental suffering and another to the CAPS itself. Method: The data were processed adopting the Iramuteq software for text-mining-analysis. Results: Out of the findings emerged four lexical classes due to the discursive representation of: (1) CAPS (39.7%); (2) social life (29.7%); (3) family (13.6%) and (4) medication and care (17%), where the utterance NÃO (NO) occupies a central position. Accordingly, the NO is associated with ' not there ' and ' not here ', contrasting the care provided outside the CAPS, represented as inhumane or inadequate, to that provided inside the CAPS, linked to feelings of 'not being discriminated, mistreated and unrecognized'. The underlying social representations expressed in the interviews show an opposition between what was experienced outside and what was experienced inside the CAPS. Conclusion: The care received in CAPS units is the expression of a new psychosocial paradigm in a process of implementation, focused on participation and interdisciplinarity, as opposed to the biomedical paradigm focused on the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban mental health studies traditionally search for causal relationships between elements of the city and the prevalence of mental disorders. This paper discusses the importance of (re)thinking the 'lived urban experience' from the perspective of city residents about how the immediate environment affects their mental health and how people cope with inequalities. A participatory-action research was implemented in a peripheral area of São Paulo – Brazil, in which volunteers from the territory made phone calls to neighbours to provide emotional support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Weekly supervision meetings were held between volunteers and researchers to discuss the experiences shared by community counterparts. Narratives have shown that the lived experience in the city is mediated by multiple layers of 'urban insecurities'. These difficulties pressured people to organise and resist in face of pervasive inequalities as well as to respond to unfolding experiences of social suffering. We highlight the potential of participatory methodologies to observe the ways in which subjects face their structural issues and the suffering that emerge in these circumstances. The understanding of how these conflicts are lived at a subjective level can support studies that are wondering about the mechanisms of how social conflicts 'get under the skin'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to review the research literature on aquatic exercise for health promotion using bibliometric methods and CiteSpace software. The number of studies related to this topic are constantly expanding, with the USA, Brazil, and Australia the centers of this research. Most published papers fall within Sports Science, but the disciplines of Physiology, Psychology, and Rehabilitation were also found to be dominant domains for this literature. The seven most prolific authors were from Brazil or Spain. The most frequently cited references focused on sub-topics of physiology, biochemistry, physical fitness, psychological health, cardiovascular disease, and joint disease. New research trends have shifted to the promotion of cardiovascular health in clinical populations (stroke, overweight, hypertension, endothelium dysfunctional, obese, inflammation, antioxidant, heart failure). Overall, this review found that research hot spots and trends in this realm have focused on improving cardiovascular health with aquatic exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]