MAPPING BRAZILIAN SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION ON MENTAL HEALTH IN THE PRISON SYSTEM: A SCOPING REVIEW

Abstract

Objective: To analyze recent literature on the mental health of people deprived of liberty in the Brazilian prison system. Method: This is a scoping review, conducted according to the guidelines of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), in which national studies available in the portals of the Virtual Health Library (BVS), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), PubMed, and the CAPES Periodicals Portal were mapped. These studies were selected based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Results and discussion: Forty studies were identified and analyzed regarding methodological design, geographic distribution, year of publication, and subtopics addressed. A predominance of cross-sectional studies (60%) was observed, mainly focused on the identification of symptoms and prevalence of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. A concentration of publications was observed in the South and Southeast regions of the country, as well as an increase in the number of studies after 2020, including analyses on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Final considerations: the need for research with more robust methodologies, including clinical trials and longitudinal studies, focused on the evaluation of psychosocial and therapeutic practices was evident, so that the present study presented as a limitation the fact that it only considered Brazilian studies published in Portuguese.