Mental health in medical school students: psychopathology, stress, sleep and life quality

Abstract

Medical school students are affected by many stressful factors during the course. The essay had as its objective to analyse the mental health, the stress, the  sleep and the life quality of the medical student. This was a transversal, descriptive and observational study that analised 249 medical students of the Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, using scales and questionnaires translated and validated to portuguese and focused on stress perceivement, life quality, sleep quality and mental health. Most of the students were female and came from Recife’s metropolitan area, which is considered a protection factor since the students could lean on their familys during the course and this would restrict the isolation that affects many medical school students. The average perceived stress score (30,63) was above the value considered as the pointer of high stress level and the psychiatric tracking scale pointed out that 66,9% of the studied individuals presented scores that suggested the existence of psychopathologycal disorder. Life quality was considered regular and 72% of the sample described having a bad sleep quality. Possibile sleep disorders were found in 17% of the students. Therefore, the conclusion is that it’s necessary more support by the institution and professors towards the students, as a tool to identify and prevent the factors that provide stress and its consequences on the students’ mental health.