Quality of the relationships in the academic environment and its impact on mental health and on the quality of life of medical students: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Studies about health and quality of life of medical students are quite common in the national and international literature. Besides the aspects related to the structure of medical course and individual characteristics of the students, emphasis has been given to the quality of the relationships in the academic environment, a theme that has not been studied in Brazilian universities. In Brazil, although research on common mental disorders, depression, quality of life and burn-out among medical students exist, there are no studies on the occurrence of bullying, abuse and other forms of harassment during medical school. Likewise, there are no studies analyzing the effects of bullying or abuse on mental health and quality of life. This project has three main objectives: 1) to estimate the prevalence of mistreatment, abuse and bullying among medical students, 2) identify factors associated with the occurrence of maltreatment, abuse and bullying. 3) investigate the association between maltreatment, abuse and bullying with mental health and quality of life. A cross-sectional study with medical students from the first to the sixth year at a public university in the State of São Paulo will be carried on. All students (n = 1080) will be invited to participate in the study on a voluntary basis. It is expected a response rate of 70% and a final sample of 756 students. The whole procedure of data collection will be done through an online platform. The instruments will be filled by students, and data collection is scheduled for the months of August and September. The occurrence of maltreatment, abuse and bullying will be assessed through a standardized instrument proposed by Rautio et al (2005). Depression, burn-out and quality of life will be evaluated, respectively, through the following instruments: PHQ-9 - Module Questionnaire on patient health -9, Students Survey Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-SS) and Quality of Life Questionnaire (SF-36). The analysis will be performed with STATA 12.0. After descriptive and bivariate analysis associations will be investigated by calculating crude and adjusted prevalence ratios through Poisson regression, 95% confidence intervals will also be calculated. The outcome quality of life will be treated as a continuous variable. After normality test it will be used linear regression to examine the association with maltreatment and bullying. (AU)