Criança usa droga?: caracterização de crianças usuárias de substâncias psicoativas atendidas em um serviço de saúde mental

Abstract

In despite of the increase of drugs consumption in Brazil and the earliness with which it has occurred, there are few studies that address the issue of child who use drugs, observing their living conditions and the standard of the use of these substances. Another gap is related to knowing how is the health care of this population. This work aims to characterize the child who use psychoactive substance and is attended in UTCA - Service of treatment for child and teenager user of alcohol and other drugs, the only hospital service of mental health in the state of Espirito Santo. The research will be presented through two articles: the first one had children as participants and in the second article health professionals. The methodology for data collection was partially structured interview, conducted after having obtained the participant s consent. Content analysis was used as a method of data analysis. The results confirm that there is a population of children using drugs and the participants reports show that some social and family factors should be considered to understand the drugs consumption in this population. In addition, the data indicate that, although there has been an increase of policies in this field in the recent years, its necessary to make progress about the specificity of the population of drug user and encourage the expansion of health services in order to cover this demand