SOCIAL PHOBIA IN MEDICINE STUDENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY PRE AND POST SARS-COV-2 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Introduction: Social Phobia is characterized as an anxiety disorder in which the individual has an excessive fear of contact or social exposure. With the Covid-19 pandemic, there were several impacts on academic life, especially in terms of social relationships, which may have triggered or intensified symptoms of Social Phobia. Porpuse: To compare the prevalence of Social Phobia symptoms in medical students at the University of Southern Santa Catarina. Methods: This is an observational, cross-sectional study. The population was 318 students, over 18 years old, enrolled in November 2022 in the aforementioned course from the 1st to the 8th semester. For data collection, using Google Forms, two self-administered instruments were used: the Liebowitz Scale and the sociodemographic questionnaire. Results: The results showed that the majority were white (93.4%), aged between 21 and 25 years (52.5%) and lived with someone (65.2%). The prevalence of SP in medical students was 33.6%, with a predominance of females and “living with someone”. Conclusions: The study found that the prevalence of Social Phobia was 33.6%, being 9.4% mild, 13.2% moderate and 11% severe/very serious. It was found that the association of the female gender was 3.6 times greater (60%) when compared to the male gender and the association with “living with someone”, being 1.8 times more affected by the disorder than “living alone”.