Burnout and depression among health professionals from the family health strategy in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

In recent years, burnout and common mental disorders (CMD), especially depression, have been identified as problems associated with high costs to the health of individuals and organizations, and as conditions often found in various professional groups. These problems have increasingly being investigated among health professionals. In 1994, the Brazilian Ministry of Health created the Family Health Program (FHP), to promote the reorganization of primary care and nowadays the FHP is responsible for the care of 96 million people in the country. By taking the complex task of longitudinal and comprehensive care of the registered population, FHP professionals are faced with difficulties of their local communities, such as: poor socioeconomic conditions, and a health system that does not respond adequately to the needs of individuals. Thus, these professionals may be at risk for exhaustion and depression, similar to the high prevalence found in community health workers in São Paulo. The investigation of these health problems and of the variables related to the management of family health teams, individual characteristics and job conditions, will help to identify the predictors of burnout and depression in the FHP, and to provide guidance for interventions, with significant repercussions on the health of these workers and the quality of services rendered to the population. Therefore, we intend to perform a cross-sectional study to investigate burnout and depression among FHP workers in São Paulo. Exhaustion will be evaluated with the Maslash Burnout Inventory, depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and stress at work with the Job Stress Scale. A multilevel analysis will be used to identify factors associated with depression and burnout at the individual, team, the primary care unit and institution management levels. (AU)