Contratualidades espoliativas e adoecimento mental: uma revisão integrativa sobre a precarização do trabalho da enfermagem

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the relationship between the precariousness of labor and the mental illness of nursing professionals. Initially, it presents concepts such as the centrality of work as a fundamental category in the transformation of the human being into a social being, as well as the distortion of work under the capitalist mode of production. It then situates the theoretical debate on work and subjectivity within the neoliberal context, investigating how neoliberalism produces mental illness and determines the ways in which this suffering is categorized. Subsequently, it discusses precariousness in neoliberal capitalism and introduces the concept of spoliative contractualities to understand how hybrid contractual arrangements have become the norm in Brazil and how they legitimize violence and discrimination as inherent components of contemporary labor relations. The first chapter concludes by addressing mental illness in the workplace based on this framework, situating the theme from a legal perspective. It presents the legislative framework related to the right to health and worker safety, as well as the main psychosocial risk factors and the most prevalent occupational mental disorders. The second chapter applies the theoretical discussions to the specific focus of this research, narrowing the analysis to the particularities of the nursing professions to place them within the debate on labor precariousness under neoliberalism and its relationship to mental illness in the workplace. To this end, it discusses the issue of care work from the standpoint of marxist feminist studies, problematizing the legal vulnerability and structural marginalization of these professions considering social reproduction theory. It also presents socioeconomic data on nursing professionals to examine how gender, race, and class intersections, as well as labor market and working conditions, serve as indicators of the precariousness and devaluation of their work. Furthermore, it includes specific data on mental illness among nursing professionals and collective mobilizations of the category seeking better working conditions. The third chapter presents an integrative literature review whose general objective is to investigate how the theme of precariousness and its impact on the mental health of nursing professionals has appeared in academic production over the past ten years. The study adopts Bardin’s categorical content analysis technique to organize and critically interpret the findings, also incorporating it into the pre-analysis phase related to data collection. Finally, this dissertation presents its concluding remarks, without intending to exhaust the topic or offer definitive conclusions, but rather to indicate, based on the studies and research conducted, possible paths for confronting the mental health crisis that stands as one of the major challenges for Brazilian labor law.