Maria João Heitor, the director of the Psychiatry and Mental Health Department and of the Psychiatry Service from Hospital Beatriz Ângelo, completed on July 2, at Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL), her doctorate in Medicine, specialty of Preventive Medicine and Public Health . Her thesis – entitled “Promoting mental health at work: Observational study of biopsychosocial determinants and presentism” – earned the unanimous approval of the jury, with praise and distinction. Maria João Heitor’s thesis was based on a research developed since late 2012 with 405 employees of a major Portuguese banking company, on organizational stress and psychological distress, conciliation work-family, absenteeism and presentism (that is, worse job performance due to physical or psychological causes), psychosocial and genetic aspects of resilience and welfare of workers. Among the conclusions , Maria João Heitor highlights that: certain organizational stressors (for instance, safety at work, resources and communication, and balance work-family) are predictors of presentism, mediated or not by psychological welfare; there are differences in resilience according to gender and work function (for higher levels of stress, men and more differentiated workers present higher resilience); physical exercise, prescribed medication and balance work-family were, in the study sample, predictors of health self-perception; the investment in the mental health of workers has central importance in work context, with impact on the organization’s productivity and on the welfare of workers. The thesis advisor was José Pereira Miguel, full and jubilee professor in Preventive Medicine and Public Health at FMUL. In the photo above, the new doctorate and the jury : from left to right, António Vaz Carneiro (full professor in Preventive Medicine and Public Health at FMUL), José Pereira Miguel, Miguel Xavier (full professor in Psychiatry and subdirector of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Maria João Heitor, Isabel Loureiro (full professor in Public Health at Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública and vice-president of the National Council for Health), António Barbosa (full professor in Psychiatry at FMUL) and José Melo Cristino (president of FMUL Scientific Council and president of the jury of the doctoral exams).
