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The Prevalence of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms among Brazilian Computer Science Students

Published: 26 February 2020 Publication History

Abstract

The mental health of undergraduate students has become a focus of attention for health experts and for society. Several studies have considered students from the Health Sciences, predominantly medical students. Lately, discussions about the mental health of Computer Science (CS) students have become increasingly common. This paper presents a study about the prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms among CS students. This study was conducted at Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), a Brazilian public university. The aim of this study was to verify the prevalence and associated factors of anxiety and depression symptoms among Brazilian CS students. Students were randomly selected ($n=131$) from the CS program at UFRRJ, aged between 18 and 30 years. The participants completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and two inventories -- the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) -- that were used to measure levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. Statistical analysis was performed using the TIBCO Statistica\textsuperscript#8482; software (version 13.5). The prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms among the students were, respectively, $51.9%$ and $64.9%$, which are higher than previous findings in the Brazilian general population and among medical students. Additionally, the BDI and BAI scores were higher among female students, and we observed statistically significant relationships between BAI, BDI, and sleep quality, among others. This paper describes our study and findings and addresses ways in which CS students may be able to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
February 2020
1502 pages
ISBN:9781450367936
DOI:10.1145/3328778
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 26 February 2020

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Author Tags

  1. anxiety
  2. computer science
  3. depression
  4. students

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  • FAPERJ - Fundacao de Amparo - Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
  • CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico

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SIGCSE '20
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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Exploring the Effects of User-Agent and User-Designer Similarity in Virtual Human Design to Promote Mental Health Intentions for College StudentsACM Transactions on Applied Perception10.1145/368982222:1(1-41)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Experiences of Undergraduate Computer Science Students Living with Mental Health ConditionsProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630846(597-603)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
  • (2023)Participatory Design of Virtual Humans for Mental Health Support Among North American Computer Science Students: Voice, Appearance, and the Similarity-attraction EffectACM Transactions on Applied Perception10.1145/361396120:3(1-27)Online publication date: 20-Sep-2023
  • (2022)Moderating Effect of Gender and Engineering Identity on the Association between Interpersonal Relationships and Mental Health of Female Engineering StudentsInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health10.3390/ijerph19161042519:16(10425)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2022
  • (2022)Mitigating Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Undergraduate Students through Online Learning SatisfactionProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Digital Technology in Education10.1145/3568739.3568782(254-258)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2022
  • (2022)Mental Health in Engineering Education: Identifying Population and Intersectional VariationIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2022.318262665:3(257-266)Online publication date: Aug-2022
  • (2021)Effects of Virtual Humans' Gender and Spoken Accent on Users' Perceptions of Expertise in Mental Wellness ConversationsProceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents10.1145/3472306.3478367(68-75)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021
  • (2021)Considering the Effects of Computer Scientist Stereotypes on Mental HealthIEEE Technology and Society Magazine10.1109/MTS.2021.310440340:3(53-59)Online publication date: Sep-2021
  • (2020)A Snapshot of Mental Health and Wellness of Engineering Students Across the Western United States2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9273885(1-5)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020

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