Minor psychiatric disorders in nursing undergraduates students: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Aim: to verify the prevalence and the factors associated to the Minor Psychiatric Disorders (MPD) in nursing undergraduate students of a public University in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Method: cross-sectional study, developed in December 2014, with 149 nursing students. A self-administered questionnaire was used with sociodemographic, academic and health questions and the Brazilian version of the Self Reporting Questionnaire - 20. For the analysis, the descriptive and analytical statistics were used in the Predictive Analytics Software (PASW Statistics®). Results: Female students, aged between 21 and 30, who were single and on the fourth semester of the graduation course were predominant. The MPD prevalence was 54.4%. Among the assessed factors, having the medical diagnosis for some pathology was significant for MPD. Conclusion: the elevated prevalence of MPD, stresses the necessity of attending and planning prevention strategies for the psychological distress in this population.