Mental health care strategies for workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: An experience in primary health care

• Autor(a) principal: Quirino, Túlio Romério Lopes
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Rocha, Luana Padilha da, Cruz, Maria Soraida Silva, Miranda, Bruna Leitão, Araújo, Janaína Gabriela Coêlho de, Lopes, Robélia do Nascimento, Gonçalves, Suênia Xavier
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Estudos Universitários (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/index.php/estudosuniversitarios/article/view/247692
• topic: pandemic; primary health care; occupational health; mental health; empathy; pandemia; atenção primária à saúde; saúde do trabalhador; saúde mental; empatia

The pandemic has been causing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in the general population and also withinin the health professionals. Primary Health Care (PHC) plays a central role in coping with Covid-19 and its workers are subject to mental suffering, which emphasizes the im-portance of actions aimed at their well-being. This study aims to describe strategies for mental health care of PHC workers during the Covid-19 pan-demic. Said strategies were developed by a team of the Family Health and Primary Care Extended Centers (Nasf-AB) in the city of Recife. Despite the demand for frontline worker health care (WHC) against the pandemic, mental health care represents a gap in Covid-19 management protocols in Recife. Thus, the Nasf-AB saw the need to restore health care for the pro-fessionals of the supported teams, which resumed in April 2020. The care strategies offered are qualified listening, auriculotherapy and massage ther-apy. Practice choice is free and meetings take place weekly. Another strat-egy was the creation of the Jornal das Flores newspaper. These strategies have good acceptance and that continuing healthcare has been resulting in better performance in daily activities by relieving pain, anxiety, and stress. The narrated experience indicates the importance of new ways of address-ing WHC and the need for care spaces to be recognized as essential for the routine resumption and overcoming the marks left by Covid-19.