Home visit and mental health: an experience report

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Pratical activities during graduation are opportunities for students to deal with real subjects. When such activities occur within the scope of the Unified Health System, especially in primary care, the student is offered the notion of sociocultural pluralism. OBJECTIVE: Discuss the importance of Home Visits as a teaching-assistance activity, identifying the benefits, potential and challenges of this tool. METHODOLOGY: This is an experience report about the pratice of Home Visits in a pedagogical context, in a Psychology Internship. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: The boarding school in pimary health care happens in the Complexo Comunitário Vida Plena, located in Pau da Lima, a peripheral neighborhood of Salvador. In this health unit, the protocol for home visits is based on the following steps: Planning, Visiting, Supervising and Writing the Report. Planning is carried out by Reading the medical record. This reading, providing prior contact with the Family and enable to set specific goals for the visit. During the visit, it was necessary to deal with emotional and chronological time, bond without judgment, attentive listening, interface from family and neighbors, vulnerability and social risk, health education and, above all, psychological issues of users. Supervision was understood as a moment of facilitation and support us, having been developed our criticality and matured the theory-pratice correlation. In the preparation of report, the registered words had to be carefully chosen, to ensure quality monitoring of users. CONCLUSION:  Home Visits are powerful training tools. Living the experience with autonomy and at the same time, having the guidance and support or out teacher, was the great differential.