MENTAL HEALTH DURING THE SANITARY EMERGENCY IN STUDENTS WHO START STUDIES IN A NURSING PROGRAM AT A UNIVERSITY OF EAST LIMA

In recent months, humanity is facing an unprecedented health crisis caused by the coronavirus COVID-19, which has increased dramatically, causing the production sector to stop and drastically restricting activities of daily life. To avoid spreading the infection, the different governments took exceptional measures such as mandatory confinement, social isolation, and the suspension of activities in non-essential sectors. Another problem that is added is the interruption in the attention of mental health services, which creates new barriers for people who already suffer from mental illnesses, therefore, there is a significant global concern about the impact of this pandemic on the mental health of the population.
A UNESCO report indicates that in Latin America the closure of university institutions (which can only teach in the virtual modality), has affected 24 million students. A study carried out in Mexico on university students revealed that there are stressors such as academic burden, fear of falling or losing the academic semester and concern about technical failures when taking their virtual classes. 70.5% of students indicated that they feel stressed due to the burden of academic work.
The strict measures of containment given by the governments to stop the spread of contagion, go against the dynamics of university learning that has a strong collective and socializing component, an aspect that was most worked with students who start a program of university studies, to achieve their adaptation to the hectic and demanding university life.
In our country, there aren't still studies on the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of the nursing student who studies in the initial semester of their professional training program, knowing this would be an important element to support strategies in health care emotional. Regarding this need to have evidence on the subject, the present study was carried out with the objective of evaluating mental health during the health emergency, in students who start studies in a nursing program at a University of East Lima. The focus of this research was quantitative and its descriptive and cross-sectional design. There was a population of 51 students from a nursing program at a university in East Lima. The data collection instrument used is the Goldberg General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), made up of 12 items, which assesses general mental health. In the results, the absence of psychopathology predominated in 49% (n = 25) of cases, followed by suspicion of psychopathology in 47.1% (n = 24) of cases, and the presence of psychopathology in 3.9% (n = 2) of cases. In relation to these results, the need arises for the academic authorities to implement programs aimed at preventing, controlling and reducing the psychosocial effects of the pandemic.