Psychosocial risk factors in non-teaching staff: descriptive findings of three schools clusters of Santarém district

Abstract

This study contributes to identification of psychosocial risk factors in nonteaching staff. The study is exploratory and descriptive. It consists in descriptive statistics of responses to a questionnaire for identification of psychosocial risk factors (translated and adapted from F-PSICO), as well as in content analysis of responses to semi-structured interviews. The results show that the non-teaching staff needs to hide emotions and feelings and also that some of the situations that affect psychologically relate to relationships with co-workers. It is stated that «there is no team spirit» and that these relations are not satisfactory. With the day-to-day workload, these workers are forced to interrupt work and perform various tasks at the same time, dealing with a day-by-day of «breakneck pace», «intense» and «very full» journey. Psychological demands, time autonomy, workload, relationships and social support are psychosocial risk factors that play an important role in the performance of these workers. Finally, some measures to control these risks were recommended.