Suffering/illness and medicalization in higher education: teachers' perspectives

Abstract

This bibliographical and empirical study aimed to analyze and discuss the suffering/illness and medicalization of higher education teachers considering the relationships/work conditions to which they are subject. Empirical data were collected through individual questionnaires, applied to 176 professors belonging to seven public universities in the State of Paraná, Brazil. The analyzes were based on theorizations of authors who deal with the analized topic, based on the Historical-Cultural Psychology, with a Marxist basis. The results show that of the 176 professors participating in the research, 113 have some health problem, of which 75.22% said they had this problem after initiating the teaching job. Out of the 113 teachers who reported having a disease, 93 of them relate it to their work. Out of the 176 teachers who answered the questionnaire, 115 use medication, the most used being: anxiolytics and antidepressants (39), medication for pain (30), medication to control cholesterol or diabetes (21), control of high blood pressure (17) and sleep inducer (15). We conclude that a significant number of teachers are getting sick and are using medication as a result of precarious working conditions. We understand that teachers adhere to mediation as a way of confronting the dichotomy that occurs between the sense and meaning and meaning in the teaching activity.