[Violence against the elderly: analysis of aspects of mental health care in five Brazilian cities].

This is a research on the aspects of mental health care offered to elderly victims of violence in the cities of Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Recife and Manaus. It was used the triangulation method that relied on the analysis of secondary data, information from questionnaires and individual and group interviews, defining itself as a target audience of this study, professionals and managers in mental health care. It was investigated the line of practices developed in services regarding policies governing mental health attention and addressed to the elderly who are victims of violence. Among the findings are: the disparity in records between elderly care hospitals (22.3%) and outpatient (0.4%), lack of information on the care of elderly victims of violence; and the incipient perception of professionals regarding the violence as a health intervention. In conclusion, there is a need for greater public investments: in improving the quality of information; the adequacy of the physical structure of services; the training/qualification of professionals to attend for specific elder health issues; under the aspect of violence, it was observed the need to adopt actions of prevention and attention of the most frequent disorders in the elderly.