In 2014, nearly 203,000 Brazilians were removed from work due to depressive episodes, anxiety disorders, severe stress reactions and other mental health issues.
Ten years later, in 2024, the numbers more than doubled, moving to more than 440,000 leave due to mental and behavioral disorders, record of the historical series.
Data from the Ministry of Social Security show that, compared to 2023, last year’s numbers impressed – the increase was almost 67%.
Causes
Much of the departures in 2024 was due to anxiety disorders (141,414), followed by depressive episodes (113,604) and recurrent depressive disorder (52,627).
Then appear bipolar affective disorder (51,314), mental and behavioral disorders resulting from drug use and other psychoactive substances (21,498) and severe stress reactions and adaptation disorders (20,873).
They also integrate the list of mental illness removal in 2024 cases of schizophrenia (14,778), mental and behavioral disorders resulting from alcohol use (11,470) and cocaine use (6,873) and specific personality disorders (5,982).
By way of comparison, in 2024, remakes for anxiety disorders, for example, increased more than 400% compared to 2014, when they totaled 32,000. Already the departures for depressive episodes almost doubled in a decade.
Analysis
For the professor of psychology at the Federal University of Bahia and member of the Federal Council of Psychology Antonio Virgílio Bittencourt Bastos, the numbers show what was already being monitored by experts: a growing mental health crisis in Brazil.
“The indicators of illness and psychic suffering go beyond the world of work. The COVID-19 crisis brought us this postpandeia. We live in a sick society. There was a very deep rupture of the way we lived and lived, to some extent, sequelae of this traumatic experience. ”
“Other than that, we live in global society a context of very deep changes. In the ways of interacting, the digitization of life, in the technological advances that restructure all our social dynamics. This set of social, technological and economic changes generate a much more insecure and uncertain world, ”he added.
For the psychologist, part of the mental health crisis comes from a larger conjuncture, restructuring and accelerated dynamics of change.
“There is a ongoing process. We are in the midst of a very intense process of restructuring life in society and it is natural, people are expected to react to these changes with difficulties. ”
“Without a doubt, we have more specific factors in the work context,” he said. “This impact of the technological revolution, restructuring jobs, redefining management models, precarious work and weakening bonds. This somehow makes the situation at work specific, in which this crisis assumes its own proportions, shades and characteristics. ”
“Alongside this dynamic of transformation of the world of work and drastic changes, you also live with management models and traditional archaic practices. We have a culture that favors more authoritarian practices that carry the most tensions and conflicts and more difficult interpersonal relationships. ”
Quality of life
According to Bastos, due to all this context, maintaining the quality of life has become one of the great challenges of this millennium. “How to build a more sustainable, harmonious world, a world where people can balance family life, personal life. This is all a big challenge. ”
For him, the crisis in mental health draws attention and shows the importance that the state itself ensures support and support through specific programs and actions, which are not short -term.
“There are palliative solutions. Programs that do not go at the root of the problem. You see a series of actions, projects and programs developed, but deal with symptoms and consequences of the problem. They do not go to the root, in the management model, in the work processes. ”
Bastos argues that there are profound changes: “[É necessário] We move in depth in the way work is organized, in the way relationships are established. Our concern is not to imagine that just give psychological assistance and the problem will be solved. ”
This content was originally published in mental health: dismissals double in ten years and reach 440,000 on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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