Mental and behavioral disorders and sickness-absenteeism among federal civil servants

Mental disorders have been responsible for increasing sickness absenteeism, and are associated with long-term disabilities, resulting in reduced productivity and quality of life for workers.

To describe the profile of sickness absenteeism due to mental and behavioral disorders among federal civil servants in the executive branch in the state of Acre between 2013 and 2018.

In this descriptive time series analysis with a quantitative design, sick leaves for mental and behavioral disorders approved by clinics of the Integrated Subsystem for Civil Servant Health Care of Acre were investigated.

Mental and behavioral disorders were the second main cause of absences during the study period, leading to more than 19,000 lost workdays. The prevalence of these leaves ranged from 0.81% in 2013 to 2.42% in 2018. Sick leaves due to mental disorders were granted mainly to female employees aged > 41 years for a period of 6-15 days. The most frequent diagnoses were depressive episodes, followed by other anxious disorders.

Sickness absenteeism due to mental and behavioral disorders increased during the study period. These results reveal an urgent need for health promotion programs and prevention policies for these disorders in this population, as well as for further research to assess the impact of work conditions and the organization of work processes on the mental health of federal civil servants.