Psychosocial aspects of work and common mental disorders among health workers: contributions of combined models.

Objectives:: The objective was to evaluate the contribution of the combined analysis of psychosocial stress at work and its association with common mental disorders (CMD) among health workers.

Methods:: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a representative sample of primary care workers from five counties in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The outcome variable - CMD - was assessed by the SRQ-20. The exposure models were the demand-control and effort-reward imbalance.

Results:: The partial and complete performance of the models and the combination of partial models were evaluated. The adjusted prevalence ratios were obtained by Poisson regression with robust variance method. The overall prevalence of CMDs was 21.0% and was associated with high strain and high effort-reward imbalance (ERI). The results demonstrated improved performance of the full ERI and the combination of partial models to predict the event.

Conclusion:: Thus, combined models are able to provide better estimates of the effects of stressful experiences in the work environment and the consequences on workers' health, offering greater contributions to this field of knowledge.