Abstract

BAPTISTA, Makilim Nunes; DE LIMA, Ricardo Franco; CAPOVILLA, Alessandra Gotuzo Seabra  and  MELO, Liana Lins. Depressive symptomatology, sustained attention and academic performance in secondary school students. Psicol. esc. educ. [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.1, pp.99-108. ISSN 1413-8557.

Depression includes many cognitive symptoms, such as attention issues that can harm school performance. In order to verify the relations between these variables, school grades were obtained together with the application of the Sustained Attention Test and Beck Depression Inventory among 62 high school students, from both genders, aging from 15 to 24 years old. From these, 33.8% presented depression symptoms distributed in mild and severe levels, while women present higher levels of symptoms than men do. The severity of depressive symptoms showed itself negatively correlated with school performance and the attention quality. Comparison between groups with and without depressive symptoms revealed that the first one presented lower school performance and attention quality. Such results corroborate the hypothesis of relation between depression, attention and school performance in high school students.

Keywords : Depression; Attention; Academic achievement.