Estudio Transversal: Rendimiento académico asociado a depresión y ansiedad en estudiantes de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, 2015

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Depression and anxiety are emotional disorders that could be related to academic performance, mainly in students of health sciences areas, who are vulnerable to suffer these kind of disorders. The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between the presence of anxiety and depression, with low academic performance in students of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of University of Cuenca. METHODS: An observational cross-sectional study was performed; the universe included students belonging to the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Cuenca. A virtual survey was used to collect the information, and the "Goldberg Anxiety and Depression Scale" was applied in its Spanish version, the presence of low academic performance was also analyzed. Descriptive statistics was used; the data processing was done in the SPSS software version 22.0. RESULTS: 1 127 students were included, 73.8% (n=832) female and 26.2% (n=295) male; the mean age was 21.68 years (± 2.8). The percentage of students in the Schools of medicine, nursing and medical technology were 33.9% (n=382), 17.7% (n=200) and 48.4% (n=545) respectively. The frequency of depression in the schools of medicine, nursing and medical technology was 34.7%, 47.5% and 17.8% respectively; the frequency of anxious disorders was 35.2%, 50.8% and 14.1% respectively. No statistically significant association was found between these disorders and low academic performance. CONCLUSION: It has been reported a significant frequency of depressive, anxious or mixed symptoms in students of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Cuenca. However, no statistically significant association was found between these disorders and low academic performance.