Concepção sobre saúde mental dos acadêmicos de enfermagem da Universidade Federal de Campina Grande - Campus - Cajazeiras - Paraíba.

Abstract

Teaching mental health in nursing courses is mandatory, but not always accepted positively by academics. This is often due to prejudice that come from the medium in which the student is inserted or also because they feel unprepared to deal with situations that require immediate action, such as direct contact with the patient. This study aimed to investigate whether there were changes in the conception of mental health during the academic nursing education in order to verify the influence of the subjects of this area and other experiences in the training process. This is an exploratory, descriptive and qualitative study. The procedure used for data collection was the application of specific questionnaire designed for the research on the topic. The subjects were freshman students of the undergraduate course in Nursing at the Federal University of Campina Grande - Campus Cajazeiras, and those enrolled in courses of the sixth semester of this course that had already taken the subjects "Mental Health Nursing" and " Psychiatry Nursing ", totaling 36 students. The data collected through the questionnaire were categorized with tabulation and simple statistical analysis of the variables investigated in the multiple-choice questions and qualitative analysis of the answers to essay questions, using the Content Analysis technique. The identified categories were: feelings about mental health; knowledge perceived as insufficient; performance in mental health; preferences for other areas. It brings as a result an observation of the changes of conceptions among the students of the first and sixth semesters in the nursing program, enabling further research on the impact and the dynamics of these changes in nursing education. In conclusion, we understand that it is fundamental to the process of change in the way that these students think and act towards the issue, in order to place themselves as future qualified professionals to work in different areas of mental health care.