Brazilian Preventive Programs: Who Does Them and How Does Prevention on Mental Health is Developed?

Abstract

The goal of this study is to identify the Brazilian research centers where systematic preventive interventions are developed and describe the national program evaluation studies. For that, we conducted a systematic review of the national literature on two databases (Scielo and Pepsic), through the keywords "prevention", "basic care", "primary care" and " health promotion ", which resulted in 25 articles, describing 42 interventions. The results indicated a predominance of extensive interventions, with small samples, performed weekly, for promoting skills in children and adolescents in educational settings. Mostly, studies did not include follow-up assessments, neither discussed the implications of the findings for public policy. The researchers are mostly psychologists, affiliated to public universities in the Southeast region. It is concluded that the improvement of research networks and the expansion of exchanges between researches and public policy can foster the advancement of the area in the country.

Keywords:
prevention; mental health; public policies; program evaluation; early intervention