Multidisciplinary telemonitoring at the Psychosocial Care Center for Children and Adolescents in Vitória da Conquista: achievements and challenges for its implementation.
Keywords: telemonitoring; mental health; childhood and adolescence
The COVID-19 pandemic had a worldwide impact on the health area, especially during the period of social isolation, unexpectedly causing the urgent adaptation of the most diverse health services for distance care. Given this scenario, this study aimed to analyze the potential and restrictive aspects underlying the use of telemonitoring at the Center for Psychosocial Care for Children and Adolescents, located in Vitória da Conquista-Bahia. To this end, two articles were developed, the first of which was focused on bibliographical research using an exploratory-descriptive method to describe the trajectory of the use of Communication and Information Technologies in Brazil and list the different forms of distance monitoring aimed at children and adolescents during the pandemic period in national and international mental health services. The second article presents, through a case study of a qualitative nature, the experience of telemonitoring carried out by professionals from the multidisciplinary team during the year 2020, with users and their caregivers. Online forms were applied to the professionals and focus groups were held with service users, one group with adolescents and the other with family members. The results allowed us to conclude that, although there are limitations to accessing technological resources and the need for better structuring of the telemonitoring proposal, benefits were found in monitoring users and their families over the telephone, namely: reduction of waiting lines for care, strengthening the bond between users and the reference technician, agility in resolving behavioral situations such as crisis management, guidance on drug treatment and building the autonomy of patients and their caregivers in relation to treatment. This dissertation enabled the construction of a good practice guide for the implementation of telemonitoring in mental health services. Finally, it is outlined that telemonitoring is a powerful resource that, added to face-to-face care, tends to be a promising care strategy in mental health services.