[Mental health and primary care: analysis of a local experience].

This article presents the results of a research aimed at mapping the mental care services provided in a Primary Care Unit in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The study is based on the premise that today Primary Care can contribute to a change in the mental care model in Brazil. The practices used by the professionals of the units for dealing with problems classified as mental problems are analyzed from the perspective of concepts such as patient-centered care, listening and integrality. The study is based on participant observation, semi-structured interviews with professionals working in a Health Unit and in a Family Health Program besides information collected from medical records using a tool especially conceived for this purpose. The results of this study show that in the mental care actions offered in primary care, the biomedical model, psychiatrization of mental care and bureaucratization of the work process restricting the actions to the Unit are still prevailing.