Fatores associados ao estilo de vida de policiais militares

Abstract

The scope of this investigation was to analyze the association between lifestyle and socio- demographic and occupational characteristics among military police officers (MPs). This involved a cross-sectional epidemiological study. The sample consisted of 288 MPs within the Police Force of Recife, Pernambuco. The data were collected by means of a semi-structured questionnaire. For the data analysis, IT tools were used (STATA-10.0 and SPSS- 15.0 for Windows) and descriptive statistics procedures, chi-square analysis and regression associations (p < 0.05). Among the lifestyle results, 12% said that they smoked, 10% were classified as cases of suspected excess consumption of alcoholic beverages, 73% were considered to be insufficiently active and 40% admitted they were involved in frequent or occasional conflicts. Age of 39 years or over (RP = 1.39), lower education level (RP = 1.68), the lowest economic level (RP = 1.49) and being in the profession for 18 years or more (RP = 1.49) were associated with lifestyles with greater risk to health (with two or more unhealthy factors). Therefore, promotion and prevention measures should be adopted in order to attempt to reduce the health vulnerabilities of these workers.