Intervenção fisioterapeutica reduz o indice de estresse em vestibulandos / Manual physiotherapy intervention reduces stress levels in students during exam period

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

Although certain stress levels might be beneficial to the performance and survival, the constancy of stressors or an inadequate stress response may cause risks to health and may trigger or worsen a variety of diseases. In order to adopt preventive or curative strategies it is necessary to identify the high-risk groups by determining the stress levels. Studies in Brazilian adolescents during the year they are preparing to fight for a vacancy in the public universities are justified by the high concentration of cortisol, one of the stress hormones, found in these students? saliva samples, collected not only in the exams period but also during the period they do the option for the university they want to attend. The objective of this work is to determine the stress levels in students preparing to apply for the universities (study 1), and also to suggest an alternative of non-pharmacological therapy in order to reduce the stress levels in the students during the exam period and then, improving their performance (study 2). In the first study, we determined the perceived stress level in the students attending a preparatory course, in March (beginning of the school year), November (when they apply for the exams) and in November (in the week they do the exams) by using the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ, Byrne, 2005). In the study 2, 32 volunteers were submitted to 40 min manual therapy, twice a week, from September to November. Another group of students not submitted to the therapy was evaluated as control. The cortisol concentrations were determined in four saliva samples collected during one day in the period of registration and on the day of the exam, the index of perceived stress and the performance in a memory test aimed to evaluate short and long term declarative memory were evaluated in the week before the exam. The results showed that the ASQ scores were lower in March than September and November. They also have shown that the students who had not undergone the manual therapy presented an increase in the concentration of salivary cortisol before the exam, what did not occurred with the students in the treated group. Moreover, the treated group also scored lower in the perceived stress questionnaire, exhibited a better performance in the short term memory tests and a higher rate of success in the exams. We concluded that the applied physiotherapy program was effective to reduce the students stress levels and improved their performance in the exam

ASSUNTO(S)

adolescence estresse manual therapy cortisol memoria adolescentes cortisol stress memory terapia manual

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