O trabalhador da Atenção Primária à Saúde e os impactos psicossociais decorrentes da sua atuação em tempos de pandemia

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the implications that the pandemic scenario of COVID-19 has had on the mental health of Primary Care workers, in a municipality in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte. It is a study with a qualitative approach of the descriptive and exploratory type. Data collection took place between December 2020 and March 2021. The data investigated in this study were obtained through a semi-structured interview, carried out by telephone, in which the professionals answered the questions verbally and were subsequently transcribed, ensuring ethical rigor regarding the anonymity and confidentiality of the participants. The treatment and analysis of discourses were performed using the software Interface de R pour Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et de Questionneires (IRAMUTEQ), which performs quantitative analyzes of textual data based on contexts and content classes based on similarity of vocabulary or used in different contexts. similar, associating to the same lexical field. Based on the classification of the categories by IRAMUTEQ, they were interpreted through content analysis, covering the steps indicated by Bardin, in order to extract the relevant content for discussion based on the literature. This study was licensed by the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Trairí (FACISA) / Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte – UFRN according to CAAE: 39785420.9.0000.5568 and opinion number 4,428,312. Among the workers participating in the research, there was a predominance of females (70.0%), aged between 31 and 40 years (55.0%), being married or in a stable relationship (75.0%). As for the level of education, it was noticed the predominance of professionals who attended high school (55.0%). Most of the population studied work as community health agents (25.0%), with a workload of 40 hours per week (85.0%), with a monthly income of up to 3 minimum wages (70.0%), with more than 10 years of experience in the Basic Health Unit (45.0%). From the lexical analysis by CDH of IRAMUTEQ, four dendrograms were unveiled with the following themes: Class 1: “Health work in times of a pandemic: stigma, prejudice and discrimination”, which highlights the social stigma and discriminatory behaviors suffered by primary care workers participating in this research, as well as the social processes of exclusion, resulting from the creation of prejudices and the potentialization of stereotypes linked to negative attitudes and beliefs directed at these workers. Class 2: " The organization of work and the illness of workers ", which is based on the reports of the interviewees, on the transformations that occurred in professional relationships, in the increase in requests for demands, in the different management models, variable remuneration, increase in controls and registration processes as a result of the pandemic. Class 3: “Our daily suffering”, which presents reports resulting from the worker's relationship with the work process in primary care during the course of the pandemic, considering the experiences of pleasure, suffering, exhaustion, satisfaction and illness. And class 4: “The pains I have here in my chest”, in which we sought to analyze terms in the interviewees' speech, which refer to possible repercussions on their mental health, correlating with aspects of the literature on the subject. It is concluded that through this research it was possible to understand the interference and impacts of the work process during the course of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the mental health of primary care workers. It is hoped that this research can support the development of public policies to promote and care strategies aimed at the collective of health workers.