Um olhar cuidadoso sobre o dentista: Síndrome de Burnout em dentistas que trabalham em centros de saúdeda Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte

Abstract

The Burnout syndrome is an occupational illness characterized as a multidimensional phenomenon that includes workers aspects, social and environmental variations as elements that act on the development of this phenomenon. The syndrome is constituted by three related and independent dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization andlow professional accomplishment. Nowadays, stress has become a great issue in almost all organizations, due to significant changes that have been happening in the labor market, and many individuals have not been able to deal with it successfully, which reflects on their health and consequently in their production and quality of work. The aim of thecurrent research was to study the prevalence of Burnout syndrome among the dentists who work at the Municipal Health Care Centers of Belo Horizonte and to identify the levels of the illness among the same group. This study consisted in a quantitativequalitative research. The methods used to collect data were the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and a professionals profile questionnaire. To select the sample it wasused the ratio method of estimation, considering the standard of 50%, level of significance of 95% and error of 10% on the basis of the finite universe of 306 dental surgeons who work at the Municipal Health Care Centers of Belo Horizonte. A total of 96 dental surgeons had been interviewed. From this amount, 80.2% were women with less than 30 years of age up to more than 50 years of age; and 63.5% were married. The results of the analysis of the MBI had indicated the following distribution of levels associated with the applied variation: High Emotional exhaustion (64.5%), low Depersonalization (61.5%) and high Professional Accomplishment (42.7%). These data represent a significant level of the Burnout Syndrome among the dental surgeons of the Municipal Health Care Centers of Belo Horizonte. In other words, the process of the Burnout Syndrome has been spread among these professionals, which justifies an intervention and prevention project based on the health of these professionals. The information must be the first action to be adopted because with the knowledge of the symptoms and the causing agents of the syndrome, the professionals compromised to the labor health will be able to adopt appropriated preventing actions. In the cases which the syndrome has been already in process, there is the possibility of proposing measures to solve the problem by means of individual confrontation strategies as well as strategies that minimize or eliminate the involved stressors, besides the reestablishment of healthful work conditions in the occupational environment, and when it is necessary medical and psychological aid. The proposal consists of three steps of performance: one of individualcharacter, another one of institutional level and a last one that focus on the interrelation between institution and individual. The institution plays a key role because without its persistence and compromising with the proposal, it stays only in the personal sphere. An alert must be done to the dentists who are compromised to their own health and the healthof those they take care of. This alert is to inform and to tell about the involved potentials, so that the legislation and the programs of labor health prevention can be used with criterion, and, thus, to rescue the rights of the worker, as well as their dignity as health professionals and citizens.