Schooling, work, income and mental health: A retrospective and association study with users of a psychosocial care center

Abstract

Sociodemographic studies are important for planning and analyzing the needs of the population. Research on the profile of users of mental health services is still incipient in Brazil. We aimed to describe the sociodemographic profile of users of a psychosocial care center and to verify if there are associations between the variable education with the other demographic variables. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive, associative, and retrospective study, with data gathered through by medical records, protocol of reception, social report and psychiatric anamnesis. Data analysis was performed through a descriptive and association tests. The prevalence of women users in the services was identified (n=324). The users came mainly from the Middle-West (n=239) of the country, followed by the Northeast (n=144). The social conditions stated a high number of unemployment (n=130), in addition to the elementary and high school levels. The variables: work (p = 0.0005), occupation (p = 0.0005), income (p <0.0001), number of children (p <0.007) and receive benefit (p = 0.02) presented positive correlations. We concluded on the importance of research of correlations between sociodemographic data and mental health variables to provide evidence in the creation of public policies in this field and social inclusion of users.