Estresse em estudantes pre-vestibulandos / Stress in senior students

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

Stress is defined as the organism response to a variety of potentially dangerous stimulus. During the year preparing to apply for the public universities, students have enormous intellectual work and psychosocial stress including several hours of daily study. The aim of this work is to evaluate stress through the salivary cortisol levels (SC) and the ?Perceived Stress Questionnaire? (PS). These indicators of stress levels were determined in volunteer students who are preparing to start university (US) and pupils in the second year of high school (HS). Saliva samples were collected once a month during the scholar year and also on the day of the exam. The SC was higher in September, when US have to decide on a career, than those seen in other months or on the day of the exam. The SC increased in the exam day at 12:00 and 18:00 o?clock compared to August and October. The PS did not vary during the year. There was no correlation either between physiological and psychological stress or between the SC in November and the success in the admission exams. The SC and PS did not show statistical changes during the HS year. We conclude that the SC of US oscillated during the year indicating that these students are under high levels of stress, that are even higher in the period of registration and in the day of the exam, and that the SC is a good indicator of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal activation level and, therefore, of stress

ASSUNTO(S)

cortisol students stress (fisiologia) estudantes stress (physiology)

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