Salud mental y permanencia académica en estudiantes de Enfermería: valoración de un proyecto universitario de acompañamiento

Abstract

Mental health is a relevant component of nursing education due to the academic and clinical demands students face throughout their university experience. The objective was to analyze nursing students’ perceptions of the contributions of a university mental health project to socioemotional coping, well-being, academic experience, and student retention. A mixed-methods, non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted with 35 students. A questionnaire comprising nine Likert-type items distributed across three dimensions and open-ended questions was administered; qualitative responses were examined through content analysis. Favorable ratings ranged from 77.15% to 80.00% for the socioemotional and coping dimension, from 71.43% to 82.86% for the academic and student retention dimension, and from 77.14% to 80.00% for communication and infrastructure. Open-ended responses identified perceived changes related to academic organization, emotional management, help-seeking, well-being habits, and interpersonal relationships. The project was favorably perceived across the dimensions evaluated; however, the findings represent self-reported perceptions and do not allow the observed changes to be causally attributed to the project.