Emotional disorders and their relationship to academic achievement in dental students

Abstract

Introduction: Emotional disorders can influence the academic performance of students, however, the factors, academic, family and social, can modify this relationship.
 Aim: To describe the emotional disorders and their relationship with academic performance in the students of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Cooperativa de Colombia University, Medellin, Envigado.
 Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 140 randomly selected students, who were surveyed with sociodemographic information, academic performance and applied a validated instrument for measuring emotional disorders. A univariate and bivariate analysis was performed.
 Results: 140 students participated, the average age was 22,5 years, most women 55,7%. In general the average of the students was of 3.79 with a standard deviation of 0.33 a minimum of 3,0 and a maximum of 4,5. Mainly, a greater percentage of the depressive disorder was found in 18,6% and of anxiety in 13,6% and there was no association with statistical significance between the emotional disorders and the academic performance, according to the chi-square test (p≥0.05, chi-square).
 Conclusion: The most frequent emotional disorders in dental students were depression and anxiety. Depression occurred more in students with average (good) academic performance.