Occupational therapy and COVID-19: weaving mental health networks in the time of a pandemic

ABSTRACT

This essay presents a theoretical-practical reflection about the contributions of occupational therapy in mental health in Brazil to face pandemics and their individual and collective effects. The objective is to identify and analyze the different dimensions of the professional action of occupational therapists who work in the mental health field in the COVID-19 context in Brazil. To do so, the interfaces between mental health and pandemics, the organisation of the Brazilian network of psychosocial care and the action possibilities in the Health Public System are briefly presented. Also, four dimensions of the professional practice of occupational therapy are presented: (1) Arts and health care, (2) Management actions, (3) Professional qualification actions, and (4) Social participation and communication. These dimensions must be considered given the pandemic context and the interrelation between them. It is hoped that the reflections on the dimensions presented will contribute to the construction of occupational therapeutic practices in psychosocial contexts, expanding the possibilities of a clinical practice inseparable from the actions of creation, citizenship and professional training.

KEYWORDS:

• Pandemic
• COVID-19
• mental health
• occupational therapy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 CAPS coordinates the Specialized Care (Atenção Especializada). The Therapeutic Residences (Residências Terapêuticas, abbreviated RT) and the ‘Back Home Program’ (Programa de Volta pra Casa) are focused on people who left psychiatric hospitals, with interrupted or harmed links, and on investing in increasing psychiatric beds in general hospitals as an alternative to hospitalization in psychiatric hospitals in emergency cases.