Suicide prevention in Primary Health Care: an analysis on the spheres of professional activity

Abstract

Suicide is a public health problem that has gained greater dimensions in recent decades. However, Brazil has a prevention policy that is still recent. The present work con­sists of a conceptual analysis on suicide prevention based on national productions on suicide preventive actions developed in the context of Primary Health Care, considering the period from 2010 to 2020. Based on this analysis, an attempt was made to program preventive actions in a behavioral perspective. For this purpose, a search was carried out in the Virtual Health Library using the keywords: “Suicide”; “Primary attention”; “Prevention”. Twelve articles were retrieved and they were read in full. From the articles, the actions described were inventoried and, subsequently, the actions were analyzed from the scope of professional activity. It is con­cluded that, in more than half (23) of the actions analyzed (n = 38), the concept “prevention” designates actions corresponding to other areas of professional activity. The actions identified, when they cover the preventive scope, have little operational descriptions, making their practi­cal implementation difficult. The work that supports this study has the potential to contribute to the delimitation of preventive practices, to the delineation of changes in cultural practices and to proposals for public prevention policies.