Relatos de experiências de profissionais de Saúde do Brasil no enfrentamento da pandemia de COVID-19: impactos na Saúde Mental

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world in countless ways and the impacts of the disease continue to have consequences in different spheres of society. In facing the pandemic, health professionals are actually more exposed to contamination by the virus. The field of work constitutes an important element in the lives of individuals and the processes of occurrence of workers' suffering are often related to this environment. In this sense, the implementation of the Unified Health System brought numerous transformations to the field of Health as a whole, however, when it comes to the field of Workers' Mental Health, there are still few advances in relation to the creation of public policies. Thus, it is of paramount importance, aiming at the well-being of these individuals, that intervention measures are put into practice. Thus, the objectives of the research were: To analyze reports of health professionals in Brazil, based on their experiences, in the face of the Covid-19 Pandemic; Identify which are the most frequent symptoms; Identify what are the triggers of psychic suffering and analyze the possible consequences on the mental health of these professionals. Six health professionals who worked in different areas and levels of health care participated in the study. Data collection took place through semi-structured individual interviews, which were recorded with the authorization of the participants and were later transcribed and used for analysis based on the methodology qualitative. The collected data were analyzed according to Bardin's Content Analysis. From the interviews, five categories emerged and within the categories there are subcategories. In view of the results found, it was possible to observe that the Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the lives of the professionals interviewed. The data presented serve as an alert to the levels of psychic suffering that these professionals faced and many continue to face. All participants had at least some symptom of psychological distress, which were anxiety and depression symptoms and the diagnosis of Burnout Syndrome. The causes of these sufferings were diverse, but among these, the working conditions were pointed out by all professionals as a factor that contributed to the development of suffering. As limitations of the study, it is important to highlight the small number of the research sample and the lack of Secondary Care respondents. Finally, there is an urgent need for the problems faced by these professionals to be heard and, thus, for care and health promotion actions to be put into practice.