EVALUATION OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION AMONG NURSING STUDENTS OVER THE COURSE OF A YEAR

Abstract

Introduction: Anxiety and depression observed in young people are associated with poor quality of life during college, not only in terms of poor eating and lifestyle habits, but also the inability to deal with problems associated with college and their future profession. Each stage of life, with its due concerns and questions, interferes in the level of overload and pressure among college students. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the levels of anxiety and depression among nursing students at a public university in the interior of Paraná, at three different times, over the course of one year. Method: This is a quantitative, descriptive, exploratory study with a longitudinal design. Data collection took place at three different times throughout the year (March, July and November) of 2019, using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), validated for Brazil to assess anxiety and depression, as well as an instrument for sociodemographic and academic characterization of the subjects, constructed and validated (face, content and semantics) for this study, by experts in the area of ​​education and mental health. Descriptive and inferential analyses were performed for the variables of interest, as well as the calculation of Cronbach's alpha to assess the internal consistency of the items of the HADS scale. Student's t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and one-way ANOVA with repeated measures were used to compare the measures of anxiety and depression, as well as with sociodemographic and academic variables among the students, throughout the three evaluations. Results: Among the 77 participating students, 92.2% were women with a mean age of 21 years; 15.4% were married; 74.6% declared themselves to be Catholic; 65.8% declared themselves to be good students. Age and the fact of having a subject dependency were considered statistically significant when compared between the years of the course. Anxiety averages in the three measures, respectively, for general nursing: 10.0; 9.9; and 9.5, not being considered statistically significant. And for depression: 7.1; 7.4; 7.1 being statistically significant for the third evaluation. There was no statistically significant variation between the evaluation of anxiety and depression levels in the three measures. Conclusion: The levels of anxiety and depression evaluated by HADS, in the General Nursing group were not so expressive quantitatively, but are still higher than other studies involving nursing and/or health area university students. Data from the study indicated no difference in anxiety and depression levels, at different times, throughout the year. Not having reached the population of academics of the course in question, as a whole, in the evaluations carried out, was one of the limitations of the study.New studies are being carried out to try to explain the variations in anxiety and depression levels among students on the Nursing course in question, with methodological approaches that allow the subject studied to have a voice.