ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS IN HEALTH SCIENCES ACADEMICS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PANDEMIC IN BRAZIL

Abstract

Introduction: During the pandemic, many habits were changed to adjust to the prevention and dissipation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, especially in the lives of students, negatively influencing their social, physical and student relationships, making them vulnerable to the emergence or intensification of common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. Objective: To evaluate the levels of anxiety and depression symptoms of Health Science students at a public university at the beginning of the pandemic. Methods: Quantitative cross-sectional descriptive study. To characterize the sample, a sociodemographic questionnaire was used, and to measure the levels of anxiety and depression, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) instrument was used. Both questionnaires were applied using an electronic form. Results: The sample consisted of 99 students from physical education, nursing, pharmacy and medicine courses. When analyzing the levels of mental health symptoms, an average of 8.73 was observed for anxiety and 7.62 for depression, which are interpreted as borderline values, which indicate a possibility of triggering some mental disorder linked to these symptoms. However, female students who reported feelings of fear/anxiety about the pandemic had higher levels of the studied symptoms. On the other hand, students who reported not exercising regularly showed significantly higher levels of depression than those who reported practicing physical activities regularly. Conclusion: The results of this study assume that the levels of anxiety and depression at the beginning of the pandemic were related to several variables, such as gender, age group, practice of physical exercise, and especially fears and anxieties about the pandemic and the new coronavirus.