Prevalência de transtornos mentais comuns : estresse no ambiente de trabalho e atividade física em militares

Abstract

This thesis includes two articles that sought to investigate the relationship of stress in the workplace with the prevalence of common mental disorders and the relationship of both with levels of physical activity in military personnel of the Brazilian Army. In the first article, we sought to estimate the association between job stress and common mental disorders (CMD). Job stress was evaluated with the effortreward imbalance model (ERI) and the occurrence of CMD was assessed with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). We estimated prevalence ratios by Poisson regression to obtain robustness to the Confidence Intervals (95%). The prevalence of CMD was 33.2% (95%CI: 0.29, 0.37). The study showed, after adjustments for age, education, income, lifestyle, self-perceived health status, health problems and selfreported occupational characteristics, that job stress was strongly and independently associated with CMD. The prevalence ratios (PR) ranged from 1.60 to 2.01, varying between job stress levels. Also the rank of lieutenant was independently associated with CMD (RP = 2.06; 95%CI 1.2 4.1). Results suggest that over-commitment is an important component of job stress for this population. These findings were consistent with the literature and contribute to the knowledge of health and mental health among armed forces personnel in Brazil, highlighting that job stress may increase the risk of CMD in the military personnel. The second article aimed to investigate the association between job stress and CMD with the practice of physical activity among armed forces personnel. Physical activity (dependent variable) was estimated using the Baecke Questionnaire, an instrument commonly used in epidemiological studies on physical activity. Job stress and CMD were the independent variables, evaluated according to the description mentioned above. We sought to establish the association of these variables with physical activity in military personnel. Multiple linear regression was performed via generalized linear models. After adjustment for confounders, job stress characterized as high efforts and low rewards" remained associated with higher levels of work physical activity (b = 0. 224 95%CI 0.098; 0.351) and lower levels of physical activity in sports / exercise in leisure time (b = -0.198; 95%CI 0.384; -0.011). Additionally, CMD remained associated with lower levels of physical activity in sports / exercise in leisure time (b = -0.184; 95%CI 0.321; -0.046). Rank remained associated with higher levels of occupational physical activity (b = 0.324 CI95% 0.167; 0.481). To our knowledge, this was the first study to evaluate the relationship of psychosocial and occupational aspects involved in physical activity among military personnel in Brazil and abroad. The results suggest that the work environment and mental health are associated with physical activity of the military, which is the path that leads the troops to the physical fitness.