[Emotional ailments, help seeking behaviors and care expectancies in a marginal-urban community].
OBJECTIVE
To obtain information about emotional ailments based on the experience of adults in a socially underserved urban community, their social support resources to cope with them, and their health care expectancies.


METHODS
The study began in 2000, in the Magdalena Contreras District of Mexico City. Data collection was conducted in 2001-2003, using a multimethodological approach that included in depth interviews of female and male adults (n= 16) performed during 2000-2002. A semistructured questionnaire (n=204) was applied in the first semester of 2002 and data entering was performed in the second semester of that year. Quantitative analysis was performed in 2003.


RESULTS
The community informants evidenced a lack of social support networks. For women, the expected support to cope with emotional disorders should come from the nuclear family, although in practice their partner represented a source of discontent. For men, the main expected source of support was their wives.


CONCLUSIONS
Based on these results, some reflections are proposed around intervention programs considering both the perspective of the community members and the multidisciplinary work.
Mora-Ríos
Jazmín
J
Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente, Dirección de Investigaciones Epidemiológicas y Sociales, México, DF, México. morarj@imp.edu.mx
Ito-Sugiyama
Maria Emily
ME
D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires