ABSTRACT
Objective:
Care roles in family groups have historically been assigned to women. This paper addresses gender specificities in patient care in the context of assessments due to compulsory psychiatric hospitalizations, in order to verify whether, in this context, care tasks are still predominantly assigned to women.
Methods:
This is an observational, descriptive, multiple-case study that followed 80 family visits in evaluations in compulsory psychiatric hospitalization processes from June 2020 to February 2022, in the city of Alvorada-RS.
Results:
Women were directly involved, as applicants, in 78% of cases. In only 18 consultations there were no women present as companions, but 14 of these cases did not have any family or social network identified. The predominant participation of women can not be associated with family income or characteristics of patients or their clinical condition. In the analysis of follow-up interviews with family members, it is reiterated that the act of caring remains attributed to women. The accumulation of roles to be performed was also evidenced.
Conclusions:
the delegation of care generates overload in women, generating feelings such as fear, apprehension and insecurity. Training and sensitization of teams for a systemic and gender perspective, actively proposing the inclusion of other family members and the redistribution of tasks, seems to be part of a possible caregivers caring strategy also in this context.
KEYWORDS
Gender; women; mental health; compulsory admission; families