A saúde mental dos trabalhadores com ensino superior em situação de desemprego

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the mental health of workers from northern Rio Grande do Sul who have an undergraduation degree but are unemployed. This is a qualitative research, with an exploratory and descriptive character. Six unemployed male and female workers who have been unemployed for longer than four months participated in this study. All of them had already had some working experience previously. The participants’ ages ranged between 24 and 40 years old. A pilot study with four people was made before the investigation to validate the analytical instrument. A semi-structured in depth interview was used to collect data, recorded and fully transcribed. The data were analysed with a content analysis technique. Five broad themes have emerged from this analysis: 1) work; 2) unemployment and mental health; 3) unemployment x schooling; 4) confronting strategies and 5) future. These themes generated a number of other categories as well as their subcategories. The analysis indicates that there are peculiariti