Saúde mental e prevenção ao suicídio no setor bancário: análise da articulação entre as práticas corporativas e tecnologia

Abstract

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze, based on the ESG documents published in 2025 by the commercial banks Itaú, Bradesco, and Banco do Brasil, which practices are aimed at mental health and suicide prevention, as well as to examine the articulation of technologies within these practices. The research is justified because the World Health Organization (2025) indicates that more than 720,000 people die by suicide every year, emphasizing that the promotion of mental health is directly associated with its prevention. The International Labour Organization (2022), in its report Mental Health at Work, highlights the relationship between work, mental health, and suicide. In alignment with these institutions, the Brazilian government has been adopting several measures on the topic, updating and enacting laws that highlight the role of work in human health and emphasize the responsibility of organizations in promoting mental health and preventing suicide. However, Lima (2010), drawing on Yves Clot, emphasizes an essential point of attention regarding organizational programs, as they may produce a regimental ergonomics, a new hygienism of behavior, a set of rules and protocols that, instead of promoting workers’ health, serve to support the establishment of a nexus or aggravation between mental health and work. This observation underpins the verification of a contradiction in the banking sector: in 2023 and 2024, the Observatory of Mental Health in Companies indicated that commercial banks are among those that invest the most in mental health programs for workers; however, this same sector, which represents only 1% of the country’s formal jobs, accounted for 24% of leaves of absence due to reasons related to mental health in 2024 (Agência Senado, 2024). The topic was investigated according to the theoretical framework of the field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS), grounded in historical-dialectical materialism and historical-cultural psychology. The methodology adopted is based on qualitative research (González Rey, 2005), conducted through documentary analysis (Flick, 2009) of publicly accessible corporate reports, and further deepened through content analysis, as proposed by Bardin (2016), allowing for the identification, categorization, and interpretation of the material. As results, it is observed that the identified practices are directly linked to technological implementation and the intensification of the labor pace. Based on technological determinism, attention to mental health is operationalized primarily through applications, algorithmic management, and platforms aimed at literacy and self-management, in a process in which mental health becomes metrified, controlled, pathologized, and individualized. Thus, direct and indirect impacts on workers become evident, who are compelled to perform a homogeneous self-care performance that empties their singularity. This stance reinforces the perception of suicide as a personal and private phenomenon, distancing the discussion from its historical-cultural component, which encompasses activity and technology, and encouraging the integration of the individual, whose complexity is significantly simplified.