Today’s COVID-19 situation can affect university Health Sciences students’ psychological health. This study aimed to analyze the stress caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Health Sciences students from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) almost 1 year after the pandemic began. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with a sample of 252 university students who completed a self-administered online questionnaire. It evaluated the impact of perceived stress with a modified scale (PSS-10-C), and assessed anxiety and depression on the Goldberg scale. Students presented stress (13.1%), anxiety (71.4%) and depression (81%). Females (81.7%) and the third-year Occupational Therapy students (p = 0.010) reported perceived stress. Nursing students perceived less stress (OR: 0.148; 95% CI: 0.026 to 0.842). University students developed stress and anxiety due to COVID-19 almost 1 year after the pandemic began. Psychological support measures for these groups should be prioritized.

To provide evidence of the effectiveness of a community health intervention, that includes a cognitive stimulation program, to prevent the deterioration of cognitive abilities in our population of elderly people with normal cognition that are living in the community. Randomized clinical trial (CONSORT group norms) LOCATION: San José Norte-Centro Health Center and La Caridad Foundation (Zaragoza, Spain). 201 people aged 65 or older, with a MEC score of at least 28 points, which were randomized between the Intervention group (101) and the Control group (100). The intervention was applied in 10 sessions of 45minutes, one per week. It used materials designed by one of the authors, which addressed the following areas: memory, orientation, language, praxis, gnosis, calculation, perception, logical reasoning, attention-concentration and programming. The main outcome variables were MEC, Set-Test, Barthel and Lawton-Brody. Increases of the main result variables over their baseline level were analized. For MEC variable, the Intervention group obtained, on average, 1.58 points more than the Control group in the evaluation performed immediately after the intervention. After 6months, the improvement was 1.51 points and after a year, it was of 2.04 points. All these differences were statistically significant. For Set-Test, Barthel and Lawton-Brody variables, no statistically significant differences were observed between Intervention group and Control group. Cognitive stimulation with our program is effective to maintain or improve cognitive performance, measured with the variable MEC, our population of elderly people with normal cognition that are living in the community. There is no evidence that this improvement is transferred to the activities of daily life measured with Barthel and Lawton-Brody variables.

Objective: To analyse the overall effectiveness and cost-efficiency of a mobile application (APP) as a community health asset (HA) with recommendations and recovery exercises created bearing in mind the main symptoms presented by patients in order to improve their quality of life, as well as other secondary variables, such as the number and severity of ongoing symptoms, physical and cognitive functions, affective state, and sleep quality. Methods: The first step was to design and develop the technologic community resource, the APP, following the steps involved in the process of recommending health assets (RHA). After this, a protocol of a randomised clinical trial for analysing its effectiveness and cost-efficiency as a HA was developed. The participants will be assigned to: (1st) usual treatment by the primary care practitioner (TAU), as a control group; and (2nd) TAU + use of the APP as a HA and adjuvant treatment in their recovery + three motivational interviews (MI), as an interventional group. An evaluation will be carried out at baseline with further assessments three and six months following the end of the intervention. Discussion: Although research and care for these patients are still in their initial stages, it is necessary to equip patients and health care practitioners with tools to assist in their recovery. Furthermore, enhanced motivation can be achieved through telerehabilitation (TR).

The aim of this study was to analyze university Health Sciences students’ self-perception regarding gender stereotypes, and to explore whether there was any association between gender stereotypes and clinical/socio-demographic variables. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 252 university students who completed a self-administrated online questionnaire (18.3% males, 81.7% females). We evaluated the self-perception of gender stereotypes as determined using the BSRI-12 questionnaire and explored the association of this measure with the impact of perceived stress measured using a modified scale (PSS-10-C) as well as anxiety and depression according to scores on the Goldberg scale (GADS). Results: According to the students’ self-perception of gender stereotypes, 24.9% self-perceived themselves as feminine, 20.1% as masculine, 24.9% as androgynous, and 30% as undifferentiated. The degree determines self-identification with gender stereotypes. Nursing and Occupational Therapy are studied mostly by women, 28.4% and 45%, respectively, while Physiotherapy is studied mainly by men (71.2%). Females indicated more anxiety (75.7%) and depression (81.7%) than males (52.9% and 67.3%, respectively). In contrast, males developed more stress (88.5%) than females (74.1%). Conclusions: University degree, anxiety, depression, and stress determined self-identification with gender stereotypes. The results of this study indicate that gender roles influence the possibility of developing mental disorders and should be taken into account in future studies.

The efficacy of cognitive stimulation programs for the elderly is sufficiently documented. However, few studies have addressed the effectiveness of language stimulation programs by cognitive levels in this population. This randomized controlled trial was conducted on 308 participants from a primary care center and followed the CONSORT guidelines. A stratified randomization was carried out. The primary variable was the MEC-35, validated Spanish version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). The secondary outcome variable was set-test, which evaluates verbal fluency in four categories. These tests were assessed for all outcome measures at baseline, at 10 weeks, at 6 months, and 1 year after the intervention. The intervention consisted of 10 sessions of 45 min/week for 10 weeks through mental activation notebooks that comprehensively work on the different cognitive functions. The results show that the comparisons between the control and intervention group turn out to be significant (p < 0.05) at the three time points. The comprehensive cognitive stimulation program has made it possible to improve the global aspects of cognition, language proficiency, and verbal fluency. To optimize and maintain these results, it is necessary to consider other clinical, functional, psychological, and occupational aspects, as well as related educational aspects, which prevent mild cognitive impairment.