Therapeutic Residential Services in the city of Rio de Janeiro: an analysis of the structure and process of care

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the structure and the process of care in the residential therapeutic services for people with mental health problems existing in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It is a cross-sectional study focused on the collection of primary information through a structured instrument. The research was carried out in all devices in operation in December 2016. In Rio de Janeiro, therapeutic residences receive mainly long-stay patients from mental hospitals (94.3%), with a large number of vacancies in presence devices of staff in the 24 hours of the day (63.8%). It was verified that a significant part of the residents had a low frequency in the care activities of the Psychosocial Care Centers (48.7%). The internal care in the residential facilities points to a model with strong interweaving between the dwelling and the actions of psychosocial rehabilitation. The low turnover of users shows a trend towards the establishment of services with long-term care, which should be taken into account in the maintenance and expansion of the program in order to plan effective services. The results indicate that individual financial support for each patient from governmental sources is vital to the program's sustainability.