Abstract

FUREGATO, Antonia Regina Ferreira  and  SILVA, Edilaine Cristina da. The mental illness experienced by a psichiatric patient : their perceptions. Esc. Anna Nery [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.4, pp. 652-659. ISSN 1414-8145.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1414-81452006000400006.

We carried out a series of interactions with a mental patient and his relatives, who received the necessary information. Nurses from NUPRI (Núcleo de Pesquisas das Relações Interpessoais) worked with 15 recorded interviews that aimed get to know perceptions about the disease. Data were processed using ALCESTE software. We obtained a file with 139,843 characters, correlating subjects' attitudes with their fear. ALCESTE selected 5 classes: the accident in childhood; the consequences; adolescent relations; disease and hospitalization; current activities. We observed the impact of culture and group rules on the subject's identity dynamics, who constructed his reality on the basis of happenings that determined his life history. The disease joins the conflicts that are legitimized by the family's and the health system's attitudes, mediations between altered and the meaning given to the disease.

Keywords : Psychiatry; Nursing; Representations; Perceptions.