HORAS DE TRABAJO Y SALUD MENTAL EN TRABAJADORES DE LA SALUD.

WORKING HOURS AND MENTAL HEALTH IN PUBLIC HEALTH WORKERS We study the relation between mental health and working hours in public health workers. Thirty six (N=36) health workers completed the General Health Questionnaire GHQ12 (Goldberg et al., 1988), included in the S.O.S (Survey of Shiftworkers), a self screening test that measures the probability to need psychological assistance. The sample was divided in three groups, all affected on hospital emergency services. The average of weekly working hours was 74:45hs in interns residents physicians, 50hs in not resident physicians and 43:20hs in nurses. We found a positive correlation between weekly working hours and GHQ12 values (p=0,001), indicating more psychological distress with long weekly working hours. ANOVA and post hoc analisys (HSD Tukey) found significant differences between groups (p=0,001), the residents physicians had higher GHQ12 punctuations (bigger presence of psychological distress) than not resident physicians (p=0,024), and than nurses (p=0,007). The overload of working hours and nocturnal work in residency training could have a negative impact on mental health, and indirectly on patient safety for the presence of human errors and attentional failures associated to the excess of working hours.