Suicide prevention in primary care: a nursing vision

Abstract

Introduction: Suicide is a serious public health issue in Brazil. Primary Care plays a fundamental role in the prevention and treatment of suicide cases. Therefore, as members of the Primary Care team, nurses have crucial importance in the prevention of this problem. Thus, this study aims to describe the viewpoint of Primary Care nurses on suicide prevention in relation to the current public policies in Brazil. Materials and Methods: A descriptive, exploratory qualitative research was conducted at the Primary Health Care Units in Teresina, Piauí in which 18 nurses participated. IRAMUTEQ software was used to process the data collected. Results: The lexical analysis health care and family support network, which constitute class I - How to deal with situations and the nursing role; Class V - Reference as a care measure; Class II - Health care networks as a protection factor; Class III - Lack of training in nurses in front of suicide prevention; Class IV - The essential nature of health actions to prevent suicide. Discussion and Conclusions: It is considered that primary care nurses are able to respond to suicide prevention since they manage to articulate the health actions with the services available in the health care network.