The month of January 2023 marks one year of the inclusion of Burnout Syndrome in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) of the World Health Organization (WHO). The syndrome affected 32% of the economically active Brazilian population, according to research carried out in 2019 by the International Stress Management Association of Brazil (ISMA-BR), published by Fiocruz Agency. In the White January campaign, this year with the motto “Life demands balance”, professionals and social organizations draw attention to the need for care and the construction of a culture that preserves Mental Health. 

Burnout Syndrome, described by the WHO as an occupational disease “resulting from chronic stress in the workplace that has not been successfully managed”, is characterized by mental and physical exhaustion. Individuals feel ineffective and unproductive and, as a rule, experience situations of extreme stress in the work environment. 

For Beatriz Madruga, psychologist preceptor at the Santos Dumont Institute (ISD), the factors that cause the emergence of the syndrome are: excessive work and a wide variety of demands; workplace violence, such as physical and verbal aggression or harassment and occupational trajectories that are undervalued and/or have low pay. Despite this, the condition arises in a more complex scenario, not limited by a single list of reasons. 

“Currently, the experience of stress is extremely normalized. Being stressed, anxious, always in a hurry and always having a lot of work is naturalized and valued by our society, and this is extremely sickening”, points out Beatriz. 

The data from the research carried out by ISMA-BR are alarming, but they were still analyzed before a crucial period for the study of mental illness and stress in the world population: the Covid-19 pandemic. 

According to the Fiocruz Agency analysis, the numbers may have grown during the pandemic, which brought a series of consequences to the socioeconomic scenario and health systems around the world. In 2020, according to the WHO, cases of depression and anxiety, possible consequences of Burnout, increased by more than 25% worldwide. 

In search carried out in the first year of the pandemic by PEBMED, startup which produces content for doctors, 78% of healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses and technicians, had signs of Burnout Syndrome. Among doctors who were on the front line in the fight against Covid-19, the prevalence was even higher, reaching 83%.

Burnout stress levels were studied mainly among healthcare professionals due to the proximity of the group to cases of illness and deaths from Covid-19, but other professionals are also affected. For Beatriz Madruga, the pandemic “made professionals more resilient and more vulnerable in the same way”, which is why Burnout is present, today, more frequently in the most diverse work categories. 

Burnout at home

During the pandemic and as a result of social isolation, one of the most adopted practices in the world was home office, or remote work. For psychologist Beatriz Madruga, this practice indicates an overload, as it creates the act of “working” outside and inside the home – something that may have intensified situations of exhaustion and stress within homes, by combining a domestic routine with employment. 

“Day-to-day domestic life is, like our profession, work. Unpaid, necessary, essential, but it’s work all the same. So, if I experience, at my work, excessive demands, chronic stress, the feeling of ineffectiveness and, when I get home, I have the same experience again, I experience the same work ecosystem within my home. There are two sickening work environments to experience on a daily basis”, explains the psychologist.

In this scenario, the professional also draws attention to the situation of working women, reinforcing that within the same professional category “there is the presence of greater mental illness among women, when compared to male illness”. One factor that may be behind this is the overload of domestic work. 

The impact of the pandemic on women's mental health, especially within this scenario of combining personal and professional lives, was investigated by the Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (Elsa-Brasil) in search “Covid-19 Scenarios”, which heard more than 5 thousand people. During social distancing, 24% of the women interviewed presented, after the start of the pandemic and social isolation, symptoms of depression, 20% faced anxiety and 17% reported stress.

“We need to look at domestic work with this noun clearly highlighted. And work. And therefore it demands, moves, sickens. The division of tasks needs to happen, as well as attention to the size of the requirement we make in relation to this environment always being clean and organized. What is possible within the amount of demands we have? It's an important question to ask. What can you do without becoming exhausted and exhausted? These are questions that apply to our non-domestic work and our domestic work as well”, concludes the professional. 

Care strategies

Just like other illnesses linked to mental health, chronic stress and Burnout establish the need to adopt specific care in order to reduce or avoid situations that may cause or worsen these cases. 

One of the first steps, for psychologist Beatriz Madruga, is individual attention to the worker's relationship with work. “Evaluate your level of demand with yourself, and your level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction; how are interpersonal relationships in this environment; how you feel at the beginning of the week, about to start a new journey, and how you feel at the end of the week, when you finish. Working on awareness of these factors is an important point”, he explains. 

Another step is to analyze the factors of rush, stress and excessive work and how much they are being valued in everyday life, seeking to identify, according to Beatriz, an “alert characteristic” in these points, and then, throughout the days, value time for rest, leisure and dedication to other activities and spending time with family, partner and friends.

The search for psychological support is also, for the preceptor, one of the most essential care strategies. 

“As a mental health professional, I see that, in general, this care is becoming more present, in different professional categories and ages. However, I think we are still in our infancy in this regard. I still see people resistant to the care space, because they normalize tiredness and stress, and minimize their impacts. There is still room for more campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of mental health, what mental health is, and how it is linked to our work”, reflects the psychologist.