Job Satisfaction and Mental Suffering of Penitentiary Agents of the Female Prison of Porto Velho, Rondônia (Brazil)

The study with the penitentiary agents that work in the female prison system of Porto Velho aimed to analyze the level of job satisfaction and the level of mental suffering of these workers. It is a descriptive and cross-sectional study. This study was performed with 34% of the penitentiary agents who carry out their activities at the Porto Velho Women's Penitentiary, Rondônia. For the data collection, three structured instruments were used: The Sociodemographic Questionnaire; the Self-Report-Questionnaire (SRQ-20), and the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI), measured using a Likert scale. Satisfaction in the work had similar indexes to those found in the literature, presenting the highest proportion in the intermediate variables, that is, their higher frequencies are in the range of some dissatisfations, with 40%; and 35% with some satisfactions. The highest level of dissatisfaction is in the variable to the form by which changes and innovations are implemented, with 55%. The results showed that the prison staff had lower psychiatric disturbances (19.59%), in the following order of determination: decreased energy (23.33), depressed mood (23.33%), somatic symptom (21.25%), other symptoms of SRQ-20 20%) and depressive thoughts (10%), considered as indicators of evidence of mental suffering. From the data collected in this study, it is possible to indicate a possible association between work dissatisfaction and mental suffering.