Advances and challenges of the Back Home Program as a deinstitutionalization strategy: an integrative review

The aim of the current article is to identify scientific evidence about advances, possibilities, and challenges of using the Back Home Program (BHP) to deinstitutionalize former psychiatric hospitalization patients. This study is an integrative review based on the scientific literature available in the Virtual Health Library and the PubMed portal, as well as in the Cinahl, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycINFO databases. The analysis of all nine selected studies was based on the interpretation of discursive practices observed in public domain materials. Results have shown that the investigated program is an undeniable social achievement and civilizing advance, and that it contributes to deinstitutionalization, as it helps to change beneficiaries' lives, with emphasis on their new consolidated place in society and on the dispensability of psychiatric hospitals. However, the program needs to overcome some challenges, such as access and equitable distribution in the national territory, professional training, and the involvement of individuals in the appropriation of benefits. It is crucial to emphasize the need to develop strategies to promote autonomy, citizenship, access to a broad mental health network of assistance and care resources, patients' return to family life, and insertion in the labor market.