Mental health crisis situations: the nurse's work in Primary Health Care.

Objective: to analyze the nurses' work in Primary Health Care in the face of mental health crisis situations.

Method: this is a descriptive-exploratory study with a qualitative approach, supported by the theoretical-interpretive frameworks of behavior analysis and historical-dialectical materialism. The data was collected through a semi-structured interview with twelve Primary Health Care nurses and analyzed using the deductive technique proposed by the Theorical Domains Framework, the methodological reference adopted.

Results: the data analyzed made it possible to draw up two themes: "Nurses' work: material and social determinants" and "Nurses' subjective conditions in the face of mental health crisis situations". Nurses' work was guided by the protocol execution of "technical" steps related to clinical psychiatry, with an understanding of the crisis as a "psychiatric outbreak".

Conclusion: the study made it possible to analyze the nurse's work in crisis situations, describing the objective and subjective contradictions, their understanding of the crisis phenomenon and the emotional repercussions of this work on the professionals. This situation raises the need for action, organization and political-social mobilization of the nursing category in the fight against the asylum model of care and the consolidation of the Psychiatric Reform perspective.

Background: (1) Manicomial protocol action to identify and reduce crisis symptoms.

Background: (2) Reducing the experience of crisis as a psychopathological phenomenon.

Background: (3) Use of theoretical-critical references aligned with the proposals of psychosocial care.

Background: (4) Internationally validated methodological and analytical framework.

Background: (5) The need for political and social action on the nursing profession's part.