Transtornos de saúde mental autorreferidos em estudantes de odontologia de uma universidade pública

Abstract

Mental health constitutes a fundamental component of every individual's overall well-being, and dental students are not exempt from the challenges associated with psychological problems. Students enrolled in health courses express higher levels of anxiety compared to their peers in other disciplines. Practical experience in clinical environments, interaction with patients, exposure to psychological distress, constant supervision by teachers in the clinical context, fear of making mistakes and the feeling of inadequacy are elements that can contribute to triggering such disorders. The objective of this study was to compare the levels of resilience, the quality of life scale and the sociodemographic aspects of university students who self-reported mental health disorders with those of university students without this diagnosis. For this, a questionnaire with 52 questions was applied, with sociodemographic data, quality of life questionnaire and resilience scale, comparing the group with self-reported mental health disorder with the group without self-reported mental health disorder. 138 dentistry students from a public university participated in the research. The quality of life was worse in students with mental disorders in the physical, psychological and social relationships domains of quality of life, but there was no statistically significant difference in the environment domain. Correspondence analysis revealed that students diagnosed with the disorder tend to be female, white, have low to moderately low resilience, need to improve or have regularity in the quality of life domains (SD, PHD, ED, SD , PD) and carry out extracurricular activities, while students without a diagnosis tend to be male, mixed race, have moderately high to high resilience, regular to good quality of life domains and do not carry out extracurricular activities. Therefore, the data demonstrate that quality of life and resilience are worse in dental students with self-reported disorders. These aspects are relevant as they highlight the need to develop monitoring and strengthening strategies for this population for better professional and personal performance.