[Generating health elicits illness? The contradictions of work performed in emergency care units of public hospitals].

In general terms, health is influenced and generated by the interaction of biological, social, economic, political and cultural factors. From this standpoint, the scope of this paper was to analyze the relationship between working in emergency care units of public hospitals and the health/sickness of the professionals who work in them. It involved a quantitative and qualitative survey, in which 240 health professionals (doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, dentists, nutritionists, audiologists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists) filled out a questionnaire.