MENTAL ILLNESS AND THE ROLE OF NURSING CARE

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The psychiatric reform in Brazil brought a new approach to the care of patients with mental disorders. However, mental health has often been neglected in comparison to other areas of health, which contributes to social fragility and can significantly increase self-destructive behaviors. Therefore, the participation of a nursing team in supporting patients with mental disorders is crucial to ensure care based on ethics and humanization, highlighting the importance of communication between professionals and the care offered to patients. OBJECTIVE: To analyze, in the light of the literature, nursing care for patients with mental illness. METHODOLOGY: The type of research chosen for this study was an integrative review of the literature, guided by the question: “what is the nursing care for patients with mental illness?”. The bibliographic search was conducted in the BVS, in the LILACS, MEDLINE and BDENF databases. The search terms used were the DeCS terms: "nursing care", "patient" and "mental health", combined with the Boolean operator AND. The inclusion criteria for selecting studies were: availability of the full text in Portuguese, English and Spanish, published in the last five years and accessible online. Theses, monographs and papers that did not meet the proposed objectives were excluded. After the identification and completion of the search, the abstracts of the included articles were analyzed and read; then, the data were organized into tables and charts and discussed. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: The training of nurses in mental health faces challenges, such as the low workload and the lack of specific disciplines, which compromise the quality of care in Primary Health Care. It is essential to expand the practice and vision of nurses, transforming their performance from basic procedures to closer and more therapeutic care for patients. Academic training should be revised to include guidelines from the Psychiatric Reform, ensuring that professionals are prepared to deal with psychological distress. Furthermore, it is important that nurses seek continuing education and develop the skills necessary for effective mental health interventions, recognizing the relevance of their role as health promotion agents in the community. CONCLUSION: Therefore, the study highlights the flaws in the training of mental health nurses, which hinder their performance in psychosocial care. It is crucial that they seek continuing education to improve their skills and effectively promote mental health in the community.