ABSTRACT
The changes in the work scenario over the last decades caused, inter alia, the modification in the working conditions. The main modifications occurred particularly in the physical aspects, given the growth of the service sector and the decrease of the industrial sector. As a consequence, the decrease of the physical load contrasted with the increase in the psychosocial component. On the other hand, the concept of occupational health is no longer an individual problem and is converted into a social problem and a worker’s right (Laaksonen, Rohkonen, Martikainen & Lahelma, 2006; Jiménez, 2011). Many chronic diseases and health changes, namely cardiovascular and musculoskeletal, have multifactorial causes and the work environment may definitely play a part in their development. Psychosocial and organizational risk factors, such as heavy workload, tight deadlines, atypical work schedules, precarious work are (combined or not) associated with the development of such pathologies (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2013). The consequences of the work in the individual do not usually have an immediate and simple expression and, quite often, they manifest later on in a particular manner, hence establishing diverse relations with the work which are not experienced in the same way by all the workers (Gollac & Volkoff, 2000) Consequently, the diversity in the individual situations and stories, at work and facing an activity, implies the configuration of distinct fields in terms
death. Consequently, their interactions with the patients are completely different from the interaction established by other occupational groups and they create working conditions far more demanding (Sauter & Murphy, 1995).
