Percepções de neuropsicólogos e profissionais da saúde sobre a neuropsicologia hospitalar

Abstract

Neuropsychology applied in a hospital context, an emerging expertise of psychology, has been extremely relevant in recent studies, since the possibilities of action permeate from early stages of surgical procedures, from functional cognitive assessments, to later stages, reaching the neuropsychological rehabilitation process. Although neuropsychology is wellestablished in the diagnosis of specific neurological diseases with many studies conducted in the field, it lacks more detailed data on the particularities of the neuropsychologist's work with the hospital staff, and on the current scenario of this practice, especially in less populated metropolitan regions in Brazil. Thus, this study aimed to describe the perception of neuropsychologists and healthcare professionals who work in hospital teams about hospital neuropsychology and to understand the scenario of hospital neuropsychology in the state of Espírito Santo. This is an exploratory study with a qualitative approach, according to the analysis criteria of semiotic phenomenology. The study design included a stage of quantitative data collection, intending to map the training and practice in hospital neuropsychology in Espírito Santo. Twenty-one professionals from hospitals in the southeast region of Brazil participated (nine neuropsychologists and twelve professionals from different specialties in the healthcare area), who responded to a semi-structured interview via video conference. The results revealed nine different themes: “Hospital scenario entrance”, “Ignorance of the area versus Appreciation”, “Attributions of the neuropsychology in the hospital”, “Financial obstacles”, “Training processes”, “Divergence of functions”, “Relevance versus Costs”, “Interaction between professionals from different specialties” and 13 “Knowledge about the neuropsychologist's attributions”. Based on the mapping carried out in Espírito Santo, there was a shortage of neuropsychologists working in hospitals and training processes that include neuropsychology in the curriculum. The discussion of the results points out the lack of knowledge from healthcare professionals, of the possibilities of the contribution of hospital neuropsychology as a limiting factor for the insertion of professionals in this field, as well as fragility in interprofessionality, evidenced by the deficient communication between team members. It is concluded that these findings expose the need to rethink training processes in the field of healthcare and psychology, in addition to indicate the need for further studies to explore neuropsychology fields that go beyond the traditional clinical context.