Abstract

URREGO MENDOZA, Zulma. Analysis of the Situation of Mental Health in Colombia, 1974-2004. rev.colomb.psiquiatr. [online]. 2007, vol.36, n.2, pp.307-319. ISSN 0034-7450.

Background: This article explores various concepts of mental health in Colombian official studies spanning 30 years. Objective: To explore the methods used for conceptualizing mental health and the health situation in a set of studies carried out in Colombia between 1974- 2004. Methods: Identification, recompilation, and analysis of documents of primary sources, in light of the categories of study selected through the previous review of secondary sources following the parameters of historiographical analysis. Outcomes: The concept of mental health as the absence of mental disease is the prevailing concept, as well as the characterization of the situation of mental health/disease from out-of-context epidemiological perspectives, without any continuity among the different studies in relation to the methodology or analytical categories. Conclusions: It is necessary to consider problems in the field of mental health from a perspective linking the current times to historical processes, allowing for the exposure of their configuration, as well as for the planning of studies that permit the analysis of trends.

Keywords : Mental health; public health; Colombia.

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