Rasgos de personalidad y depresión en estudiantes de la carrera de Medicina y Cirugía de la Universidad de Cuenca, período 2020-2021

Abstract

Personality traits are made up of characteristics that guide the way people act, think and feel, and therefore influence different aspects of life, such as family, social, work and academic life, as well as psychological well-being. Depression, on the other hand, is one of the mental disorders characterized by a depressed mood caused by various stressors. For university students, academic demands, terms failure, and demanding evaluations are the most frequent stressors. At the same time, personality traits may influence the etiology of depressive symptoms. For this reason, the objective of the present study was to describe the predominant personality traits and levels of depression in students of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Cuenca. The research presented a quantitative approach of non-experimental and crosssectional design with a descriptive scope. The participants were 95 students of 9th and 10th cycle of the aforementioned career. The analysis of the collected data was carried out using the SPSS v.25 program for which descriptive statistics were used with presentation through tables and figures. The results indicated that neuroticism and responsibility are the predominant personality traits and there was a prevalence of 48.8% of depressive symptoms. In conclusion, it could be seen that a large percentage of people with neuroticism personality traits also presented mostly depressive symptoms.