Initial training of physicians working in primary mental health care

Abstract: Introduction: The trajectory of medical schools towards the transformation of the traditional training model to an innovative and advanced perspective of training, including in the field of mental health, has been observed since the implementation of the Family Health Strategy. Objective: The present study sought to understand the initial medical training in mental health, from the perspective of the physician working in Primary Health Care (PHC). Method: For this purpose, a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive approach was adopted, in which data were obtained through interviews with physicians working in the PHC of a municipality in the Northeast of Brazil, whose corpus was treated based on the application of the thematic content analysis. Data collection for the study took place between June 2020 and June 2021, when medical professionals working in the municipal Family Health Strategy (FHS) were invited to participate. It is, therefore, an intentional, non-probabilistic sample. Of the seven physicians working in the municipal health network at the FHS level, five were included in the study. Results: The study results indicate that medical training in mental health is still related to a biomedical vision, in which the hospital scenario is valued as a space for practices and PHC is underutilized in the development of professional skills and abilities, producing gaps that affect performance in the context of mental health care in PHC. The speeches also show deficiencies in the training related to the appreciation of issues related to medicalization and the difficulty in granting autonomy in mental health care. Conclusion: Medical training in mental health should approach the reality of the general practitioner’s work, in order to prepare them for the demands they will face in their daily routine in PHC.