Covid-19 e seus efeitos: transtorno de estresse pós-traumático e fatores protetores da saúde mental em estudantes do ensino superior

Abstract

Among university students during the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression and stress. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the common pathological result of a wide variety of traumatic events. Students in higher education have faced numerous challenges and have had to develop and recover ways of coping with the discomfort generated by the pandemic. Protective strategies are positive variables that cancel out the effects of risk factors. The aim of this study was to analyze the presence of signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress and the coping strategies used by higher education students in Ceará during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study with a quantitative approach, carried out with 427 higher education students from Ceará, with responses collected in 2022 via a form containing a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-38), the PCL-5 scale and the Coping Strategies Inventory, built on google forms, made available by email. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, ANOVA and Tukey's post-hoc test were used to analyze the data. The sample consisted of a majority of female students, with an average age of 25.5 years, with a prevalence of self-declared brown and single participants. As for the pedagogical conditions, the majority came from public institutions in Ceará, which adhered to distance learning with online classes and assessments. Most of the students were satisfied with the pedagogical activities during the isolation period, however, they stated that they were very concerned about continuing the course in person. According to the MHI-38 results, students showed more negative effects as a result of the pandemic, as Distress showed a higher average than the average of the MHI-38 Global Scale. The scores obtained on the PCL-5 showed that Dim 1, Stressful condition of the event, had a higher average than the average of the PCL-5 Global Scale, negatively influencing students' mental health. Higher education students mainly used the strategies self-control, acceptance of responsibility and withdrawal. Furthermore, mental health status tended to decrease significantly as PTSD increased. In addition, mental health status tended to increase with an increase in coping strategies, namely social support, problem-solving and positive reappraisal. PTSD tended to increase with an increase in coping strategies, namely confrontation, withdrawal, self-control and acceptance of responsibility. And PTSD tended to decrease with an increase in social support, problem-solving and positive reappraisal strategies. Given the results, it is feasible to infer evidence of the negative effects on the psychological well-being of higher education students during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, to deal with the stressors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, higher education students in Ceará used coping strategies.