Vulnerabilidades associadas à saúde mental dos policiais penais no estado do Ceará

Abstract

The objective was to analyze the personal, social and programmatic vulnerabilities associated with the mental health of criminal police officers in the state of Ceará. Cross-sectional research, carried out in prison units in all macro-regions of the State of Ceará, from April 2022 to July 2023. To carry out this research, a sample of 344 criminal police officers was used. Participants responded to the Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD), and the Multi-Attitudinal Suicide Tendency Scale (EMTAS). The data were organized and analyzed in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) v.23.0 softwares, for Windows®, it was used to build the database and statistical treatment. The research was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee of the Federal University of Ceará, under opinion 3,921,161. Participants ranged in age from 31 to 40 years (67.5%), were male, cisgender (77%) and had brown skin color (70.6%). More than half were married (66.4%) and had children (66.6%). Regarding education, (57.6%) had higher education. Regarding symptoms of anxiety and depression, it was noticed that (20.4%) had levels of anxiety and (12.3%) depression. In the multi-day scale of suicide tendency, around (21.3%) of the police officers stated that they had already had suicidal thoughts, and (2.6%) of them revealed that they had already attempted suicide. It was observed that police officers without a partner had a higher prevalence of having anxiety symptoms (p=0.008). Furthermore, people under 40 years of age were more likely to develop anxiety symptoms. Criminal police officers with comorbidities are 2 or 3 times, respectively, more likely to have symptoms of anxiety and depression. Those who had an inadequate frequency of physical activity had a higher prevalence of developing symptoms of anxiety (p=0.033) and depression (p=0.012). Those who did not have frequent leisure activities had a higher prevalence of depression symptoms (p=0.028). It was noted that police officers who suffered threats against their lives were more vulnerable to anxiety (p=0.044), and had a 2 times higher prevalence of depression (p=0.001). It was noticed that professionals who thought about leaving the police had twice the prevalence of anxiety symptoms (p= 0.001), dissatisfaction with duty schedule had a higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms (p=0.043) and depression (p=0.022). Police officers who suffer violence in the workplace are 3 and 4 times, respectively, more likely to have symptoms of anxiety (p=0.000) and depression (p=0.000). The data shows that criminal police officers are vulnerable in both individual, social and programmatic dimensions. which negatively impacts your mental health. Given this scenario, it is essential to develop comprehensive measures to promote the mental health of these professionals who perform public security roles.