The role of occupational therapists in the State of São Paulo and the care provided to autistic children and adolescents in strategic psychosocial care services

• Grant number: 25/04549-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Amanda Dourado Souza Akahosi Fernandes
• Grantee: Thamy Eduarda Ricci
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Currently, the expansion of autism diagnosis has become a phenomenon, with different interest groups involved in the debate, appropriating this agenda and the way in which care has been proposed and operated. Occupational therapists have gained centrality when it comes to intervention strategies for this public. However, this work has mostly taken place in private institutions, to the detriment of the Unified Health System (SUS), so that few occupational therapists have worked with autistic people in strategic mental health services - Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPSij), which inaugurated care for this population within the scope of public policies and the SUS. Thus, the present study aims to continue the analysis of data and the discussion of an ongoing research and, also, to identify and understand, from the perspective of mental health and psychosocial care, how care has been operationalized and offered by occupational therapists to autistic children and adolescents in CAPSij. To this end, this is an exploratory, descriptive and qualitative research. The participants will be occupational therapists who work with autistic children and adolescents in CAPSij in the State of São Paulo, previously identified in the previous study. The instrument used for data collection will be a script of questions that will guide unstructured interviews. The data will be collected remotely and analyzed through categorical analysis. It is expected that this new stage of the research will contribute to the knowledge about the care that occupational therapists working in strategic mental health services within the SUS have developed with this population.