Adoecimento mental nos estudantes universitários durante a pandemia da Covid-19: uma revisão integrativa

Abstract

Mental disorders are understood as health problems and are responsible for the incapacitation of individuals. When considering the issue of social vulnerability, mental health is one of the most significant in public health. University students are one of the populations with the highest level of stress and the scenario of the covid-19 pandemic, the presence of psychological symptoms in the lives of academics has contributed intensely. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify scientific evidence on mental illness in university students during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is an integrative literature review, following the recommendations of Preferred Reporting Items and Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The question that guided the study was: “what is the scientific evidence on mental illness in university students during the Covid-19 pandemic?” The established search sources were: Online Medical Literature Search and Analysis System (Medline), SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences). 157 articles were selected, which were submitted to the inclusion criteria, with dense attentive reading in full. Of the total corpus, 9 studies were included in the review, meeting the established criteria, specifically, online articles available in full, free of charge, published in Portuguese or English, published in the period 2020-2023 and that dealt with the proposed theme. In the selected studies, the presence of mental illness was identified in a large number of participants in each survey. From the analysis, it was also verified that the family economic crisis, the lack of resources to attend remote classes, fear of being contaminated and the contamination of their family members, contributed significantly to the development of mental illnesses in these individuals. This highlights the importance of gathering knowledge that can support strategic care interventions to support students affected by these mental illnesses during the period of the covid-19 pandemic.