Reports of professors with subjective complaints of mild cognitive decline (MCI) and normal objective examination that have sought psychiatric care in a university memory care program: a clinical-qualitative study

Abstract

Introduction: the demands of clinical care for the Health team, regarding the need for scientific understanding of psychological meanings attributed by people to phenomena and their experiences, in the field of getting ill and care, in all specialties, have been prominent in the Health literature. In the Mental Health area, the process of cognition of the human psyche, involving functions such as memory, orientation, attention and consciousness as a whole, when perceived in possible dysfunction, generates understandings - real or fantasized - that need to be known by doctors, nurses and staff, to better deal with these people, mainly to talk therapeutically in the care settings. Perceptions about cognitive decline itself, although mild and totally subjective, are so important as a subject of study, from the epidemiological, clinical-neuropsychiatric or qualitative-humanistic point of view. In subjects with predominantly intellectual work activities, such as professors and researchers, the investigation of associated symbolic aspects is relevant due to their peculiarities; and it needs to be known for appropriate emotional and pragmatic handling by readers who makes clinical activities. Objective of this project: to explore/discuss psychological meanings of self-perceptions, reported by university professors, about certain Mild Cognitive Decline, with a subjective nature, that is, with normal objective specialized examination; and who is using the "Caring for Memory" program of the Health and Community Center (CECOM), which operates on campus, under the responsibility of the State University of Campinas. Participants and Method: The sample will be constructed intentionally and sequentially, by referral of the responsible physician of the psychiatric outpatient clinic connected to the program, who is also assessor-psychiatry of this project; and closed by exhaustion (all possible, if the population is small) or by saturation of theoretical information. The Clinical-Qualitative Method - a humanistic investigative approach, developed for clinical environments - will be used with the technique of the Semidirected Interview of Open-Ended Questions and in Depth; as well as free, complementary observations, in the collection from the participants' speeches. The operationalization in the field is preceded by acculturation and ambulation phase, in order to promote the insertion of the researcher into the chosen care setting, as well as the language of the patients. The treatment of the data will be done by Qualitative Content Analysis, with emerging categories, discussed in the light of psychodynamic concepts, classic of the theoretical framework of Medical Psychology and Health, especially Balintian. In addition, another master's project, under the same orientation, will study the population of professor who have sought such service, with equivalent complaints, but with a confirmed diagnosis of the decline. Expected results: the conclusions obtained and published should contribute to a better understanding of the emotional representations of the problem, thus improving the professional-patient relationship, allowing clear and effective guidelines and increasing adherence to preventive and therapeutic programs.