Mental Health at University: Actions and Interventions Aiming Students

Abstract

Studies conducted by Fonaprace show high rates of illness in the student community, resulting in debates, investment in programs, and actions aimed at university students' mental health. Furthermore, in 2020 Brazil faced the situation imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, negatively impacting mental health. This documental study sought to identify and analyze Ufal's mental health interventions for the student body. For this purpose, we mapped services and actions in mental health on the university's website and social networks, specifically aimed at the student body, from 2010 to 2020. We chose The Institutional Management Reports and available information/news as the analytical corpus. We collected data from December 2020 to April 2021 using the descriptors "mental health," "psychic suffering," "psychological illness," and "quality of life." We carried out the analysis of documents through Content Analysis, through which emerged two categories that expressed the research findings: "mental health care" at Ufal: from the policy of permanence to the permanence of actions"; and "articulating together... ": inter-sector "[...\ a way to go". The mental health interventions at Ufal are recent, still scarce, and driven by democratization policies. The student assistance sector develops most actions, which are based on a prevention perspective. There are challenges regarding interdisciplinarity and inter-sector coordination, as actions were fragmented and with little institutional articulation.