Challenges and perspectives on the occupational therapist formation in mental area field

This study aimed to identify the opinion of teachers of Occupational Therapy undergraduate course about challenges and perspectives involved in the academic education of the occupational therapist in the mental health field. It is a qualitative study with 14 teachers of mental health from ten undergraduate courses in Occupational Therapy in the state of Sao Paulo. Data collection was done through the participant ID form and semi- structured interviews that were described and analyzed through the identification of themes. The main challenges of this major mentioned by the teaching members involve the subjects curriculum limitation and the distance between the public policies and the reality noted in this field. All the teaching members consider important the general formation as well as the continuing education in order to learn more specific knowledge. The challenges are discussed and also the graduation potential and the integration between learning and service, the continuing education as well as the professors commitment of offering a program closer to the fields reality. This study contributes to the area development and to development of reflexions about occupational therapist formation in mental health.