Association between clinically important depressive symptoms and academic achivement among students in Cartagena, Colombia

Background: Some studies show a strong association between depressive symptoms and academic achievement in the adolescent population. However, there are few Colombian publications about this topic. Objective: To establish the association between clinically important depressive symptoms and academic achievement among low socioeconomic status adolescent students. Method: A group of 13 to 17 year-aged adolescents was studied. Meaningful clinically depressive symptoms were measured with Zung’ self-rating depression scale (40/80). Academic achievement was evaluated according to Colombian qualitative model. Results: A total of 43.5% of students reported clinically important depressive symptoms and 30.7% accomplished a poor academic achievement, according to teacher report. The academic achievement was independent of meaningful clinically depressive symptoms, after controlling other variables. Conclusion: Meaningful clinically depressive symptoms are frequent in low socioeconomic status adolescent students. But, meaningful clinically depressive symptoms are not associated with academic performance. Further investigations are needed.

Medical Students Circadian Sleep Rhythms and Academic Performance

Objective: to evaluate, with a preliminary study, the distribution of circadian rhythms, sleep schedule patterns and their relationship with academic performance on medical students. Methodology: in this descriptive study, a 10 item original questionnaire about sleep rhythms and academic performance was applied to medical students from different semesters. Week (class time) and weekend schedules, preferences, daytime somnolence and academic performance were asked. Three chronotypes (morningness, intermediate and eveningness) were defined among waking-sleeping preference, difficulty to sleep early, exam preparation preference hour and real sleep schedule. The sleep hour deficit per week night was also calculated. Results: Of the 318 medical students that answered the questionnaire, 62.6% corresponded to intermediate chronotypes, 8.8% to evening-type and 28.7% to morning-type. Significant difference was found among the two chronotype tails (p=0.000, Chi-square 31.13). No correlation was found between academic performance and age, sex, chronotype, week sleep deficit and sleep hours in week and weekends. A 71.1% of the students slept 6 or fewer hours during class time and 78% had a sleep deficit (more frequent in the evening chronotype). Conclusions: No relation was found between sleep chronotype and academic performance. Students tend to morningness. Few studies have been made on equatorial zones or without seasons

Etnic background and academic performance in Colombia

In Colombia, students from an ethnic group have a lower academic achievement with respect totheir non-ethnic peers in standardized test scores on math and language. This gap is persistentat a state level, especially in high ethnic density states. Using information from the state academictest (SABER 11), this study corroborates the existence of an academic gap between ethnicand non-ethnic students and, additionally, decomposes it in factors related to observable characteristics,such as family and school; and non-observable factors. The methodology proposed byBlinder and Oaxaca applied to quantile regression is used in order to determine the existence oftest score gaps throughout the distribution of academic performance. Results indicate that forstates where there is a statistically significant gap, a sizeable portion of it is attributed to nonobservablefactors. Nonetheless, at distinct levels of academic performance, the gap size and theextent to which it can be attributed non-observable factors vary according to the state