Working conditions and common mental disorders in prison officers in the inland region of the state of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The prison officer profession is characterized by working in risky situations, which can harm officers’ mental health. This research aimed to analyze prison officers’ working conditions associated with Common Mental Disorders (CMD). This cross-sectional study was conducted with prison officers in four penitentiary units in the inland region of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, from January to August 2019. The Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) tool was employed to quantify the presence of CMDs. Poisson regression verified the association between variables with robust variance and adjusted for confounding factors to estimate the prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). The study population comprised 331 prison officers (ASP), with a 33.5% frequency of CMDs. CMDs were higher among prison officers with a worse perception of working conditions (PR: 1.13; 95%CI%: 1.03-1.24), who suffered insults (PR: 1.18; 95%CI: 1.08-1.29), psychological harassment (PR: 1.23; 95%CI: 1.11-1.36) and sexual harassment (PR: 1.20; 95%CI: 1.03-1.40) in the last 12 months. CMDs were associated with work-related variables, such as worse environmental conditions within the prison and psychological and sexual violence.