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There has been an alarming rise in suicide attempts among Indigenous people in Brazil, leading to national concerns about the provision of psychosocial care and professional support. In this study, we make an attempt to understand the perspectives of professionals in assisting Indigenous people from a specific group, the Inỹ, and identify the specific challenges of addressing issues through the mental health care system related specifically to suicide prevention. Using a qualitative approach with participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the research included Indigenous and their families assisted by three public institutions and the professionals that work in public psychosocial assistance. For this paper, we examined the tensions, conflicts, and challenges of the healthcare professionals at one of these institutions, a Psychosocial Care Center in the state of Goiás/Brazil. For data analysis, a sociocultural protocol was built to identify dialogical tensions between the different thematic fields of mental health care. The findings reveal that the theme of suicide was an important concern in the daily work with the community. Still, there were significant issues related to the assumptions, methodology, and meaning of care between the professionals and the community, on account of which the objective of the programme to address suicide attempts had not been effective or successful. The discussion of the results raises several critical questions about the possible contributions of dialogical cultural psychology in the context of Indigenous health. Also, it has important implications for the global issue of the wellbeing of Indigenous people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2015 to 2016, an epidemic of births of children with Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome emerged in Brazil, and the state of Bahia concentrated the highest incidence of cases. The official health guidelines recommended that the affected children and their families should be supported by interdisciplinary teams of early intervention. This paper aims to deepen the comprehension of regulation and affective-semiotic mediation processes involved in the early intervention with children with Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome and their families. It focus on the experiences of a professional interviewed in a public health service in Salvador, Bahia – Brazil, through narrative analysis and the theoretical-methodological foundations of Cultural Psychology of the Semiotic Dynamics. These approaches allowed the understanding of the processes of construction of meanings, symbolic action and affective-semiotic regulation. The care of Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome children by professionals relates to disquieting experiences, inter subjectivity, meaning construction, affections and symbolic actions. These dynamic processes allowed the professional to better adapt to regulation and affective-semiotic mediation, as well as her own performance in face of children and their families. This analysis emphasizes the reflections of health care practices and their repercussions in the quality of the assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes ten recovery narratives of people with a serious mental illness who received mental health services in the public health care system of the city of Campinas, Brazil. We describe the person's recovery process and their relationship with the clinical services they received. This is a very needed conversation because the incorporation of recovery and recovering citizenship concepts in clinical practice are still incipient in South America. Most importantly, this research adds to the dialogue around recovering citizenship in different cultures. Methods: We used phenomenological methodology to interpret data drawn from the participant's life course interview (using the McGill Illness Narrative Interview). Results: We found that a) Before receiving services, people were overwhelmed by symptoms, but did not know what was going on; b) Loved ones and clinicians explained symptoms as part of a mental illness, and the proposed treatment was largely accepted; c) Mental health treatment was seen as helpful but not enough to address what was meaningful for their lives; d) People regained a life in their community, they felt proud of their recovery process, and solidarity and collectivism seemed to play important roles in their recovery process. Discussion: We identified similarities and differences in the recovery process of people with serious mental illness receiving public mental health services in Campinas, Brazil, when compared to the international literature. Receiving mental health services was very helpful for participants, principally when feeling overwhelmed by symptoms. Mental health services seemed to be less effective in helping people regain a meaningful life in their communities. Solidarity from friends and family members was recognized as an important recovery asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares anti-hookworm campaigns conducted in the early twentieth century in France, Germany, Brazil and West India. The populations that suffer from hookworm are not identical in the North and in the South. In tropical and semi-tropical regions hookworm is mainly found among poor peasants and is related to lack of hygiene, while in temperate climates hookworm was a professional disease of miners, a highly organized professional segment. Nevertheless, major disparities in the pattern of hookworm control did not reflect the North-South divide, but a difference between campaigns. These aimed at the eradication of hookworm infection (Germany and West-India) and at alleviating the effects of this infection on populations (France and Brazil). Maps that represented the prevalence of hookworm mirrored the aims of the sanitary campaign in which they were used: eradication of parasitic worms versus the reduction of the handicap induced by these worms. In public health as well, representing is intervening. And vice versa: patterns of intervention shape representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]