Alteración de la atención y concentración en estudiantes de medicina que realizan turnos de noche

El sueño, es indispensable para la recuperación, física, mental y de procesos como la consolidación de memoria, atención y lenguaje. La privación de sueño (PS) incide en la atención y concentración. La PS es inherente a la formación médica, pero no es claro el papel de los turnos nocturnos en estudiantes, porque no cumplen con un objetivo académico, pero hay relación con disminución de la salud, productividad, accidentes, y alteraciones en diversas actividades. Está descrito el impacto de la PS sobre la capacidad de aprendizaje y aspectos como el ánimo y las relaciones interpersonales. MÉTODOS: Se realizó un estudio analítico observacional de cohorte longitudinal, con tres etapas de medición a 180 estudiantes de Medicina de la Universidad del Rosario, que evaluó atención selectiva y concentración mediante la aplicación de la prueba d2, validada internacionalmente para tal fin. RESULTADOS: Se estudiaron 180 estudiantes, 115 mujeres, 65 hombres, entre los 18 y 26 años (promedio 21). Al inicio del estudio dormían en promedio 7,9 horas, cifra que se redujo a 5,8 y 6,3 en la segunda y tercera etapa respectivamente. El promedio de horas de sueño nocturno, disminuyó en el segundo y tercer momento (p<0,001); Además se encontró mediante la aplicación de la prueba d2, que hubo correlación significativa directa débil, entre el promedio de horas de sueño, y el promedio del desempeño en la prueba (r=0.168, p=0.029) CONCLUSIONES: La PS, con períodos de sueño menores a 7,2 horas, impactan de manera importante la atención selectiva, la concentración

Diseño de un modelo de intervención del suicidio en niños y adolescentes

Resumen El objetivo de este estudio fue el de diseñar un modelo de intervención para la prevención del suicidio en la población escolar de niños y adolescentes, con 72 participantes de un colegio público y un colegio privado de la ciudad de Bogotá. Se caracterizó el suicidio en la ciudad de Bogotá en los últimos nueve años, los aspectos legales, se analizaron algunos modelos de prevención, se identificaron los principales factores de riesgo y factores protectores y se propusieron estrategias para su prevención. Este modelo está basado en la administración social del riesgo y los factores protectores y de riesgo, susceptibles de modificación. Se realizó una prueba de tamizaje y fueron utilizados: el Inventario de depresión infantil (CDI de Kovacs), la escala de desesperanza de Beck y la escala de ansiedad para niños y adolescentes de Spence, validadas a nivel internacional. Se observó una correlación positiva (0.490) mediante el coeficiente de rangos de Spearman, con una significación de 0,01 (bilateral) para los tres factores de riesgo. Se hace entrega de un manual de instrucción para la intervención temprana del suicidio en esta población y un folleto informativo dirigido a padres de familia sobre los factores de riesgo y factores protectores. A partir de esto se plantean implicaciones futuras.

Students’ movement and participation in Latin-American psychology: historical and future perspectives

The historiographical paper presented is about the students’ activism and participation in the Latin American psychology. This aims are: 1) to provide a brief historic overview of the Latin American psychology; 2) to review on the students’ participation in the Latin American psychology; 3) to raise students’ future perspectives for the Latin American psychology. It is recognized that there is an extensive past of Latin American psychology and an emerging historiographical work that re fl ects that past.However, there are several historiographical gaps not covered yet by the investigations in the region. In this context, this paper wants to contribute to the study of the students’ activism and participation in the Latin American psychology construction. The historical perspective is supported by the renewed historiographical conception called instant history” which focuses on ancient and recent history at the same time. Indirect sources were used: articles, monographs and compiled editions.

Appreciation of humor sense in college students

Appreciation of humor includes several cognitive and social processes. None can say that two communities will laugh at the same jokes and find funny the same humorous content. This study worked differences in humor appreciation of university students and comparisons were made between sex and age of participants. To assess the appreciation of humor was built an instrument with 15 written jokes. This instrument was presented to a total sample of 81 students, divided into 3 groups of different age. Participants had to evaluate two aspects: the playfulness and the difficulty of each stimulus or humorous vignette. The jokes that showed significant differences in jocularity have a particular structure marked for a disqualifying content to men, indicating, as noted the literature, that men have more fun with sexual humor and prefers this kind of jokes as well as content related to aggressive or hostile, while women have more fun with humorous vignettes when the man is the victim and reject more when the victim is a woman. In terms of age and the appreciation of humor, there are differences in the type of situations and social contexts valued in the jokes, involving relationship between situational and social aspects of humor.

Alcohol consumption in young college students

Descriptive Cross-sectional study involving 787 students from a private university in Bogota. Its objectives were to determine the alcohol consump- tion prevalence, alcoholism and risk of alcoholism and determine the current pattern of alcohol con- sumption. A survey –which included the CAgE index– was used to collect the data. A prevalence of alcoholism of 23%, and of risk of alcoholism of 15% were found. Results show that alcohol con- sumption in university students begins in high school and it is a problematic conduct that it is worth being enlarged and analyzed in greater detail including other variables and perfecting the diag- nosis of alcoholism and its risk in order to achieve early identification and intervention.

Emotional characteristics of psychology students: a study based on the formative research perspective

In the formative research scheme, the author built a psychological scale, with the purpose of analyzing psychological characteristics of the School of Psychology students. The instrument showed a high reliability coefficient (α=0,86), the exploratory factorial analysis found five variables which allowed to predict some aspects of sex and career level through a logistic regression; the ALSCAL showed two emotional dimensions. The author recommends to improve the instrument and to continue its application in the School. It is also necessary to develop qualitative research to acquire new data about the topic of the research.

Modification of personality variables through application of a psycho-educational program of full consciousness (mindfulness) in university students

This study examines the effects in university students of a psycho-educational program in full awareness (mindfulness) on certain personality variables. A quasi-experimental (group comparison) design with pretest and postest measurements was employed in an experimental (n = 26) and a control group (n = 27). Barratt impulsiveness Scale (BiS- 11), Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ), Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD), and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) were applied to experimental and control groups. The results show statistically significant changes in impulsivity variables, experiential avoidance, social avoidance, social anxiety, tension and fatigue when comparing the posttest mean scores of the groups.

Academic stress in master’s students and its modulatory variables: a between-groups design

The present investigation tries to establish the descriptive profile of the academic stress of the students of the masters in education and to identify which sociodemographic and situational variables play a modulator role. This investigation is based on the Person-Surroundings Research Program and the systemical cognitive model of academic stress. The study can be characterized as transectional, correlational and non experimental. The collection of the information was made through the SISCO inventory of Academic Stress which was applied to 152 students. The main results suggest that 95% of the master students report having felt academic stress a few times but with medium-high intensity. Variables gender, civil state, attending masters and institutional support of the attending masters act as modulators in academic stress.

Evaluation of strategic knowledge of students through authentic tasks of writingin science classroom

The difficulties at evaluating strategic knowledge have been connected to the use of deconxetualized tests that, at the end, do not involve the use of this knowledge. For this reason, an interest in developing authentic writing tasks that offer advantages for these kinds of evaluation have arisen. Throughout this research, authentic writing tasks were developed in a natural sciences class, with the purpose of evaluating the students' strategic knowledge. Different instruments were used to collect data, e.g. Interviews, questionnaires, a self-inform, as well as three samples of writing by the students, with the objective of analyzing the changes that occurred between one and the others, as well as to determine the decisions that students made in order to complete the assigned tasks successfully. An authentic writing task gives great opportunities to evaluate strategic knowledge. These tasks lead students to arrange their knowledge about the topic in hand, organize and adapt it to fit the objectives and the audience, also, it allows them to control and adjust their decisions on the task. This last stage became the perfect opportunity to take notes on the knowledge and regulation of cognitive processes that the students brought into play, as well as to evaluating their understanding of writing and the demands given on the different discursive genres. As a result, the students showed different degrees of strategic knowledge in the task. The students who showed a better strategic knowledge trust in their structural abilities know about discursive genres and have a good performance in basic linguistic abilities. The students who showed weak strategic knowledge distrust their writing skills, seem extremely worried about organizing the content of their texts, fail when checking their writings, and overlook or are unaware of the basic requirements of the discursive genre they are asked to exemplify. It appears that the previous knowledge and experiences at writing the students have been exposed to may affect the strategic knowledge shown when writing in this subject. 

Metacognitive knowledge and self-regulation: A qualitative lecture of students functioning in writing

This research emerges from the world-wide problematic concerning student's failure. It particularly analyzes the meta-cognitive competences in the writing process of this population. Based on Flavell's (1992) viewpoint about meta-cognition and the socio-cognitive approach of self-regulation, two variables were measured: meta-cognitive knowledge and self-regulation strategies. A qualitative study was conducted on a sample of 12 French students at first year university. This study uses a specific technique of interview known as "explicitation interview". The data analysis included the categorization, codification and quantification of the information obtained with the interviews. In conclusion, even though the students had metacognitive knowledge related to the written tasks, they did not show strategies that could help to go beyond the descriptive modality of written discourses by taking into account the readers' expectations. Their writing processes focused on transcription of ideas with little control on the planning and revision phases.

Study habits inventory of physical therapy students in a decisions making class

Objective. To present the results of Study Habits Inventory, administered to students of the signature Decision Making IV, of Physiotherapy Program of the Rosario University. Methodology. It was investigated in the second half of 2006, study habits and conditions that influence how students of the subject assumes its university activity. The instrument used was the Inventory of Study Habits - described by Pozar, which let to know how the student engages in his studio, materials, environment and planning in its efforts to exercise their academic role. It was administered to a sample of 46 students enrolled in the 54 subjects at 85% of the total population. Results. 33% of students found that the environmental study is not satisfactory to the learning process, similar to the 41% who said that the planning study is insufficient, the use of materials was evaluated by 61% of students as a positive factor as well as 93% in the category of assimilation of content. This calls to validate the need to confront the meaning and significance for students and professors “content assimilation” as the study shows that it is reverse to academic performance. Discussion It is necessary to implement strategies that strengthen habits in students to achieve academic success and personal training considering the particular conditions of each group of students.

Attitude in students of Health Sciences toward scientific knowledge

Educating health professionals implies the challenge of creating and developing an inquiring mind, ready to be in a state of permanent questioning. For this purpose, it is fundamental to generate a positive attitude toward the generation of knowledge and science. Objective: to determine the attitude toward science and the scientific method in undergraduate students of health sciences. Materials and methods: a cross-sectional study was made by applying a self-administered survey, excluding those who were transferred from other universities and repeated. The attitude toward science and the scientific method were valued using the scale validated and published by Hren, which contains three domains: value of scientific knowledge, value of scientific methodology, and value of science for health professions. Results: 362 students were included, 86,6% of them graded the attitude toward scientific knowledge above 135 points, neutral scale value. Similar scores were registered in the domains value of scientific knowlede for the human dimension of the students and value of science for health professions. 91,4% of the students graded the value of scientific methodology below 48 points. Conclusions: the favorable attitude of the students can be explained by the contact that they have with the scientific method since the beginning of their studies and its concordance with the evolution of science. The domain value of scientific methodology obtained the lowest grade on the part of the students, which could be related to the lack of knowledge about scientific methodology.

Medical Student’s Use of Time During Clinical Clerkships and the Credits Based System

Introduction: Comprehensive undergraduate education in clinical sciences is grounded on activities developed during clerkships. To implement the credits system we must know how these experiences take place. Objectives: to describe how students spend time in clerkships, how they assess the educative value of activities and the enjoyment it provides. Method: We distributed a form to a random clustered sample of a 100 students coursing clinical sciences, designed to record the time spent, and to assess the educative value and the grade of enjoyment of the activities in clerkship during a week. Data were registered and analyzed on Excel® 98 and SPSS. Results: mean time spent by students in clerkship activities on a day were 10.8 hours. Of those, 7.3 hours (69%) were spent in formal education activities. Patient care activities with teachers occupied the major proportion of time (15.4%). Of the teaching and learning activities in a week, 28 hours (56%) were spent in patient care activities and 22.4 hours (44.5%) were used in independent academic work. The time spent in teaching and learning activities correspond to 19 credits of a semester of 18 weeks. The activities assessed as having the major educational value were homework activities (4.6) and formal education activities (4.5). The graded as most enjoyable were extracurricular activities, formal educational activities and independent academic work. Conclusion: our students spend more time in activities with patients than the reported in literature. The attending workload of our students is greater than the one reported in similar studies.

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.

Identification of the Learning Styles in the Students of Exercise Physiology in the Rehabilitation and Human Development Faculty

The object of this study is to identify the learning styles (LS) used by the students of the subject of physiology of the exercise of the program of Physiotherapy, with the purpose of establishing a direct relationship later on between the learning styles and the possible pedagogic strategies that but they favor the compression of the physiology of the exercise 48 subject of second and third year of career they were interviewed through the instrument standardized compound number (CHAEA). This study carried out an analysis descriptive and of typical deviation of the data. They were differences statistically significant in the styles of active and reflexive learning, in front of the Theoretical and pragmatic styles what puts in evidence the necessity to generate pedagogic strategies inside the subject that this chord with the tendency of the active and reflexive learning of the students.