Sintomas de ansiedade e depressão e fatores associados em agentes comunitários da saúde de Montes Claros - Minas Gerais

Abstract

The Community Health Agents (CHA) play an important role in serving the population and performing a teamwork. These professionals may have mental health problems in view of the functions complexity and the exposed situations in the working area. This research aimed to evaluate the anxious and depressive symptoms prevalence and the associated factors in CHA from Montes Claros, Minas Gerais. This is a cross-sectional, census, quantitative and analytical study. The sample consisted of 673 CHA and the data collection was carried out in August and October 2018. A questionnaire was used with sociodemographic, economic, occupational, behavioral and mental health conditions. The anxiety symptoms were assessed using the Status Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Trait and STAI-Status) and the depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 (PHQ-9). Different descriptive Poisson regression analyzes were adopted to estimate the associations magnitude using the prevalence ratio (PR) or the Multinomial Logistic Regression Model to estimate the odds ratios (OR). The respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were considered, leaving the variables that presented up significance to 5% (p<0.05). A number of 673 CHA participated in the study, the anxiety symptoms prevalence in STAI- Status was 47.3% (n=318) and in STAI-trait, 42.1% (n=283). The working time over five years was associated with the STAI-status (PR: 1.16; CI: 1.10-1.22) and the STAI-trait (PR: 1.07; CI: 1.01-1 .12), the female gender was associated with the STAI-trait (PR: 1.10; CI: 1.02-1.18). The depressive symptoms prevalence was 19.0% (n=128), with the female sex (PR: 1.09; CI: 1.03-1.05), the working time as CHA more than 6 years (PR: 1.12; CI: 1.06-1.17), the job dissatisfaction (PR: 1.13; CI: 1.07-1.19) and the religious variable being (PR: 0.90; CI: 0.84-0.97) as a protection factor. It was found that 14.0% (n=94) presented anxiety and depression symptoms concomitantly. The variables were associated with: age 30 years old or older (OR:0.30; CI:0.14-0.66), the working time more than six years (OR:4.17; CI:2.11-8 21), poor sleep (OR:4.84; CI:1.77-13.18), the inability to deal with day-to-day stress (OR:4.06; CI:2.22-7, 42), poor self-esteem (OR:5.67; CI:2.84-11.33), Burnout syndrome (OR:5.00; CI:2.60-9.64) and traumatic stress (OR:3, 59; IC: 1.81-7.11). A high anxiety and pressure prevalence symptoms was observed. Working time was a strong predictor. There is a need for strategies that aim to promote, prevent and monitor the CHA health, reducing the problems prevalence among these workers.