Work, productivity and sickness of teachers in Brazilian public universities

Abstract This work, as well as a survival factor, is a constitutive activity of the human being. However, over the centuries, productive activity has gone through different configurations, culminating in the logic of exploitation and accumulation of capitalism, which in its neoliberal perspective is marked by precariousness and the sickness of workers. The present research aimed to investigate the modalities of illness and symptoms that affect the university teaching staff of public education, in order to verify if there is predominance of physical or psychic illnesses. For that, a review of the literature was carried out, using as support for the categorization of information obtained from Content Analysis. As main results, the predominant forms of illness considered psychosomatic, followed by the psychic pathologies and, thirdly, the physical illnesses and symptoms. It is necessary to give visibility to the sickness of the teachers of Public Higher Education Institutions and to deepen the discussions about the work of this professional category.