COVID-19 CONTAMINATION, CHANGES IN WORK ROUTINE, AND THE IMPACTS ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF PRIMARY CARE PROFESSIONALS IN SALVADOR-BA, BRAZIL, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic was a public health emergency between 2020 and 2022 with a direct impact on the lives of health professionals. The objective of the study was to identify the prevalence of contamination of the disease in primary care professionals in Salvador-Ba, Brazil, work activities changed by the pandemic, and the impacts on the mental health of these professionals. A cross-sectional study was carried out, and the reference population was the universe of professionals with higher and secondary education (N=1675) who worked in the network. An electronic form was applied from December 2021 to April 2022, including socioeconomic and demographic issues, health history and comorbidities, routine and working hours, contamination by COVID-19, and evaluation of the emotional aspects of these professionals through the application of the Anxiety Scale (GAD-7) and Burnout Syndrome (Maslach Burnout Inventory) questionnaire. A descriptive analysis of the variables of interest was performed using central tendency and dispersion measures and absolute and relative frequencies. 321 workers participated in the study, 97.20% with a workload of 40 hours per week. The female gender was the majority - 83.18%, married marital status with 57.94% and having a postgraduate degree was the most present level of education (48.50%). Among the comorbidities, hypertension had the highest occurrence (10.59%). 80.7% of health professionals revealed that they participated in the screening team (reception) of patients with or suspected of COVID-19 and in the organization of vaccination. Contamination by COVID-19 was 64.79%, and 41.83% attributed it to work activity. Of the total, 67.28% of workers had some type of anxiety intensity. Regarding the Burnout indices, it was observed that 47.06% had a high level of emotional exhaustion, 68.84% had a high level of depersonalization, and 99.06% considered their professional fulfillment to be low.