Cuida(dor): compreensões de profissionais de enfermagem acerca do trabalho em Unidade de Terapia Intensiva

Abstract

The particularities of care and the organization of work in the Intensive Care Unit can directly reflect on the health-disease relationship of the nursing worker. This study sought to understand, from the perspective of nursing workers in Adult Intensive Care Units, the relationship established between work and illness. Descriptive and qualitative research was carried out at a university hospital in the state of Minas Gerais. In the construction of the data, the focus group technique was used and in the analytical process, thematic content analysis was used. Ten nursing workers participated: three nurses and seven technicians. The organizational environment and the work process in the ICU were defined as precursors of wear and tear. The inadequate dimensioning, absenteeism and the high complexity of care are understood as a source of overload, job loss and deficit in the quality of care. Tense interpersonal relationships between peers and between them and other members of the multiprofessional team were described as characteristics of work organization. The lack of a policy for people management raises concerns and threats to the continuity of care. The multiplicity of tasks was related to the intensification of tiredness, as it requires high performance and predisposes to illness. The professional devaluation and the lack of social recognition were described as exhausting and materialize, still, in the precarious structural conditions to which they are exposed. Identified by the participants as a gradual process, the illness was described as a result of the institutional neglect of the workers' suffering demands. Nursing professionals recognized the relationship between work and illness, especially in musculoskeletal disorders and mental disorders. It is considered that managers and institutions must be sensitive and accessible to the demands of these workers. In this sense, collective and individual coping strategies such as listening spaces, promotion of a healthy and welcoming work environment, worker participation in work organization decisions and adequate health care for professionals, can contribute to the worker's health and quality of care.