Mental health and secondary education integrated with professional education in Brazil: constructing the state of the issue
Plurais - Revista Multidisciplinar, Salvador, v. 9, n. 00, e024020, 2024. e-ISSN: 2177-5060
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29378/plurais.v9i00.19361 12
making it possible to verify issues already identified by psychology
professionals in the follow-up of students, as well as to identify new demands.
In view of this, it is necessary to think of strategies for new interventions in
search of prevention and promotion related to the mental health of IFS
students [...] (Gomes et al., 2019, p. 511, our translation).
Also, according to the researchers, among the feelings identified in high school students
at the IFS, the following stood out: nervousness, worry, sadness, changes in sleep, frequent
headaches, frequent tiredness, and difficulties in making decisions, all of which interfere with
their school performance. In addition, respondents pointed to emotional, financial, and
interpersonal relationship issues. For the authors:
This whole picture also corroborates Carlotto and Camara (2008), who point
out that the younger the students, the greater the emotional exhaustion,
remembering that in our study most of the sample was young. We also
highlight the weight of the workload and the number of subjects as factors that
contribute to stress, given the increase in the volume of work, reading and
assessments, corroborating the results of these authors' research (Gomes et al.,
2019, p. 51, our translation).
In line with the context described in the study by Gomes et al., the doctoral thesis by
Nascimento (2016) entitled Fatores emocionais e de saúde mental: avaliação de alunos de uma
escola pública federal visando ações de promoção e prevenção no ambiente escolar (Emotional
and mental health factors: evaluation of students from a federal public school aiming at
promotion and prevention actions in the school environment), aimed to: "To investigate the
presence of emotional and mental health changes in high school adolescents at a federal public
school that may indicate some level of emotional discomfort or psychological distress capable
of interfering with the learning process" (Nascimento, 2016, p. 20). To this end, Nascimento
carried out a study with 94 volunteer students, who were enrolled in the three grades of high
school at the Polytechnic College of the Federal University of Santa Maria (RS). On conducting
research with students, Nascimento (2016) points out that:
[...] 94 agreed to take part in the research and answered the SRQ-20 instrument
(WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - WHO, 1994). After tabulating the
data, we identified 42 females and 52 males, aged between 12 and 19, all
single. Out of a total of 30 first-year students, 7 scored above 7; out of a total
of 30 second-year students who answered the questionnaire, 14 scored above
7; and out of a total of 34 third-year students who answered the questionnaire,
10 scored above 7, totaling 31 students out of a total of 94 in the sample who
scored above the cut-off point established for the SRQ-20 (Graph 1).
Considering the Cut-off Point stipulated as a parameter for applying the SRQ-
20, we can deduce that approximately 23.33% of 1st-year students, 46.66% of
2nd-year students, and 29.41% of 3rd-year students, which is equivalent to an
average percentage of 32.98% of the total sample of 94 students. Thus, it can