title: Psychosocial work conditions and quality of life among primary health care employees: a cross sectional study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Workers in Primary Health Care are often exposed to stressful conditions at work. This study investigated the association between adverse psychosocial work conditions and poor quality of life among Primary Health Care workers.
  
  
  METHODS
  This cross-sectional study included all 797 Primary Health Care workers of a medium-sized city, Brazil: doctors, nurses, nursing technicians and nursing assistants, dentists, oral health technicians, and auxiliary oral hygienists, and community health workers. Data were collected by interviews. Quality of life was assessed using the WHOQOL-BREF; general quality of life, as well as the physical, psychological, social and environmental domains were considered, with scores from 0 to 100. Higher scores indicate a better quality of life. Poor quality of life was defined by the lowest quartiles of the WHOQOL score distributions for each of the domains. Adverse psychosocial work conditions were investigated by the Effort-Reward Imbalance model. Associations were verified using multiple logistic regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Poor quality of life was observed in 117 (15.4%) workers. Workers with imbalanced effort-reward (high effort/low reward) had an increased probability of general poor quality of life (OR = 1.91; 1.07–3.42), and in the physical (OR = 1.62; 1.02–2.66), and environmental (OR = 2.39; 1.37–4.16) domains; those with low effort/low reward demonstrated a greater probability of poor quality of life in the social domain (OR = 1.82; 1.00–3.30). Workers with overcommitment at work had an increased likelihood of poor quality of life in the physical (OR = 1.55, 1.06–2.26) and environmental (OR = 1.69; 1.08–2.65) domains. These associations were independent of individual characteristics, job characteristics, lifestyle, perception of general health, or psychological and biological functions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is an association between adverse psychosocial work conditions and poor quality of life among Primary Health Care workers.
authors.forename: Mariza Alves Barbosa
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Teles
authors.forename: Mirna Rossi
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Barbosa
authors.forename: Andréa Maria Duarte
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Vargas
authors.forename: Viviane Elizângela
authors.initials: VE
authors.lastname: Gomes
authors.forename: Efigênia Ferreira e
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: Andréa Maria Eleutério de Barros Lima
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Martins
authors.affiliation: Federal University of Minas Gerais, 6627 Antônio Carlos Avenue, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. ferreira_rc@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Raquel Conceição
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Ferreira
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011584:Psychology; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*