Informação e representações sociais: estudo exploratório com familiares de portadores de sofrimento mental

Abstract

This study has as objectives to identify the practices of information and the relatives' of carriers of mental suffering social representations on the lunatic, the madness and the treatment of the madness; to verify the viability of the theory of the social representations for the users' studies in Science of the Information; to understand the process of elaboration of the social representations on the lunatic, the madness and the treatment of the madness starting from the actions of information. The scenery of the study is the field of the mental health that is going by a great transformation in function of the process of psychiatric reform. The locus of the research, constituted by a small one cuts out inside of this field, it is Clinica Psicossocial, located in the city of Ipatinga/MG. The work it inserts in a slope of studies in Science of the Information that is based in a conception of information as process of construction of the knowledge that leans on in the culture and in the social practices. In that sense, it looks for in the theoretical constructs that come being denominated social information and anthropology of its information theoretical-methodological referential. Besides, it adopts the theory and the phenomenon of the social representations, in its slope developed starting from the years of 1960, as an analysis category to aid in the construction task and analysis of the object. The theory of the social representations was shown for the users' studies of great value in the perspective of the anthropology of the information, once both consider the common sense and the practical knowledge as knowledge forms that possess its logic, its structure, its epistemology and they are fundamental in the daily life. The process of transfer of information was analyzed in agreement with the model denominated diagrammatic, proposed by Teixeira (1997); what facilitated to see the actors of the process of information (originators and receivers) in an interactive way. In that sense, the information is not just linked the representative communication, but also the organization of the service: its technology, the scenery and its actors - professionals, users and relatives. For the analysis of the process of reception of the information, the objetivação concepts and anchorage of the theory of the social representations were used. The empiric research revealed that the experience of to take care and to accompany the treatment of a carrier of mental suffering is the main element that forms the lunatic's social representations, of the madness and of the treatment of the madness. The treatment psychosocial proposed in the process of psychiatric reform finds welcome in the measure in that it is gotten to anchor in the experience, in the daily lived by the relatives of carriers of mental suffering. That is to say, the transfer of information will only happen if it is in agreement with that previous information acquired through the experience. In that sense, the employment of the theory of the social representations facilitated a new way of seeing the cognitive aspect of the processes of information and knowledge that he can open new perspectives for the users' studies.