PSYCHOEMOTIONAL CHANGES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THEIR IMPACT ON ACADEMIC LIFE: LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

It is known that the COVID-19 pandemic drastically interfered with everyone's routine, due to the necessary adaptations to minimize its spread, such as the closure of universities, undermining social interaction, and altering the logistics of classes and academic practices. These structural changes brought about by the pandemic, coupled with socioeconomic factors like the lack of access to technological resources and high academic demands in health courses, represent a possible factor for students' psychological distress. Thus, it becomes paramount to address the importance of mental health among dental students due to the direct impact suffered and its magnitude. The objective of this review is to evaluate the existing literature on the relationship between the possible psychoemotional changes resulting from the period of social isolation and their impact on the academic life and professional training of dental students. A literature review of publications between the years 2020 and 2023 was conducted, using the descriptors "Dentistry", "Students", "COVID-19", and "Mental Health" in the databases, Scielo and PubMed. Scientific articles in English and Portuguese related to the topic were included. Twenty relevant publications on the topic were identified after the elimination of duplicates. The results indicate that students are more prone to stressors resulting from social isolation, decreased quality of teaching, delays in academic training, high mortality rates over a short period, and difficulty in dealing with grief, among other sudden changes due to the pandemic. Students were exposed to a high psychoemotional burden, resulting in mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and stress. Furthermore, this situation had a negative impact on the quality of their training as dentists due to the need for remote classes during the period.