The impact of internet addiction on the mental health of college students from the central area of Portugal

Introduction: Mental health has an imperative roll in general health, and it’s known that most mental and physical diseases are influenced by a combination of biological, psychological and social factors, in which takes place the Internet addiction. Objectives: identify the sociodemographic variables that influence the mental health of college students; identify academic variables that influence the mental health of college student. Methods: Quantitative, descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study with 511 college students of the Central Region of Portugal. It was used a questionnaire on sociodemographic and academic context, and were used the following scales: Mental Health Scale – PhD José Luís Pais Ribeiro (2011); Internet Addiction Test, Portuguese version by Pontes e Patrão (2013). Results: Mostly female students, standing largely in the age group of 17-21 years, living in urban areas, with an average family income. Younger students have high addition to the internet (62.2%). Sex interfere with the mental health of students. The lower the negative impact of adding Internet emotions / feelings and lower its negative impact on daily life, the less anxiety, depression and loss of emotional / behavioral control of college students. The negative impact on daily life establishes a direct relationship with the positive affect, indicating that the greater the negative impact, less positive affect students. Conclusions: The results obtained point to the need to implement mental health programs, by conducting two workshops, promoting social interaction among students, to help them find more effective ways to respond to the daily challenges.

Undergraduate Social Education Student’s Perspectives about the Profession

Higher education institutions, responsible for training social educators, should ensure the construction of a profile marked by their technical versatility and whose socio-educational intervention is directed at all people, regardless of their situations in life. Reflection on the construction of this profile is fundamental given the difficulties of identity that the profession faces. In this context, we sought to develop a study which would allow us to identify how the students of a degree course in Social Education characterise this professional, in order to reflect on the contribution of training provided by the institution concerned and, if necessary, make the adjustments arising from the results. This is a qualitative, exploratory study, using an unstructured questionnaire applied to a convenience sample of 140 Portuguese students of the three years of a degree course in Social Education. Its emerging categorical content analysis was performed using the NVivo software, version 11. The main results point to a broad vision of the profession and are not limited to the work geared to specific populations or issues, valuing the relevance of the professional in the field of non-assistance socio-educational intervention. The main area of overlap between training objectives and students’ perceptions about practice allows the impact of training to be positively assessed, despite possible curricular adjustments resulting from further analysis, including the need to reinforce community intervention, undervalued by students, even though it plays a key role for social educators.

Emotional Skills and Promoting School Success in the 3rd Cycle: Students Perception

The perceptions about school play a central role in behavior, performance and learning outcomes. There is evidence that an improvement in emotional skills is associated with a higher school success. The aim of this paper is to know the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behaviors, emotional skills and academic success of students of the 3rd cycle of basic education. In order to promote students social and emotional skills, a pilot study in a School Grouping of the central region (Portugal) was carried out. It was made a diagnosis of disruptive behavior (ASEBA) and identified 6 children aged between 12 and 14 years old and followed by 3 focus groups with students, parents, and teachers, respectively. Six students mostly male were identified, with the predominance of externalizing behaviors and academic failure. They don’t like school and have no motivation for learning. The relationship between parents and teachers is conflictive. All parents have the utmost concern academic success and teachers perceived good practices, but without success. This program is seen in a perspective of empowerment of the educational agents to manage various environments and relationships. The results point to the importance of the systemic intervention program on the improvement of the social and emotional competences and academic achievement.