Abstract
Psychiatric disorders have great morbidity among university students in the health care area. Depression and anxiety are more common. The article proposes to analyze the different degrees of depression in health care courses and correlate this disorder to gender and age. The work was quantitative and qualitative, developed with student of medicine, nursing and dentistry that were submitted to the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). 383 scholars were part of the sample; The number of students enrolled in medicine was 44 (11.62%), dentistry 94 (24.50%) and nursing 245 (63.87%). Of these, 273 (71.30%) were women and 110 (28.70%) men with an age range of 26 to 33 years. It was identified that there was no association between depression and the gender variable; severe depression was found in 5.40% of dentistry students, 8.60% of nursing students and moderate to severe depression in 3.60% of medicine students. It is noted by the BDI that depressive symptoms among health care students have shown to be higher than in other populations of the same age. Depression is a risk factor for society and it is important to formulate mental health care policies, adopting measures of emotional support, restructuring curriculum and implementing psychological activities of self-control with the creation of groups of psychological assistance to the students aiming at the prevention of psychic disorders in these future health care professionals.
Universities; Depression; Health care
