Análise das publicações sobre saúde mental disponibilizadas pelo Facebook do Ministério da saúde: um estudo cibermétrico

Abstract

Changes in society's lifestyle during the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to the increase in mental disorders through numerous news, true or manipulated, published on social networks and, since then, this topic has been addressed in several sources of information, seeking to minimize such impacts on mental health in the population. Considering this scenario, this study has the general objective of analyzing the Facebook publications of the Ministry of Health about Mental Health as a way of understanding how this social network has acted in terms of making its information available, as well as how is the informational behavior of society that accesses and uses this information. The methodology consists of applied research. From the point of view of the approach, it is a quantitative study, and it has a qualitative aspect. As for the objectives, it is an exploratory-descriptive study, and regarding the technical procedures, it is a case study. In the elaboration of this work, the analysis of the informational engagement of the publications of the Ministry of Health on mental health on Facebook. The present research analyzes 131 posts from the years 2020 to 2022 of the theme and their 21410 comments. From the results, it appears that the posts on how to help the elderly and children to deal with behavioral changes during the pandemic and on the transfer of funds to face the “fourth wave” of covid are the ones that show the greatest public engagement. The reactions resulting from these posts show the public's desire to demand the planning of skillful actions to face the causes of mental health disorders in Brazil. The research also showed that the Ministry of Health did contribute to the dissemination of information on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. And the dissemination of information about mental health through the social networks of this federal agency plays an important role in the process of raising awareness and in combating the stigma associated with mental illness.