Entre risco e proteção: eventos estressores no desenvolvimento de adolescentes e jovens estudantes de escolas públicas de Belém/PA

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand the implications of exposure to stressful events in the lives of teenagers and young students in public schools and the possible interactions between risk factors (stressor events) and development protection factors. This is a multi-method research organized in two studies. The first one consists of a Systematic Review of Literature (SRL) on stressful events in the development of Brazilian children, teenagers and young people, whose aim was to construct a panorama of research on the subject. The articles were selected in the Portal of Periodicals of CAPES, SciELO and the Virtual Health Library - Brazil (VHL-BR), totalizing a set of 21 empirical articles. The results indicated the lack of productions on the subject in the North of Brazil and that the youth, as analytical category, is not so evidenced. The analysis of the research landscape indicated three investigative tendencies: the first one refers to the studies that deal with the implications of the stressor events in the development; the second relates to research that discusses these implications but relates them to other variables in order to identify the developmental outcomes of stress exposure; the third, and last, concerns the processes that can act as moderators between stressors and developmental outcomes. The second, quantitative-qualitative study was organized in two samples: the first (quantitative) sample consisted of 510 (five hundred and ten) students from 8 (eight) public schools in the city of Belém, of both sexes, with ages between 12 and 24 years, who responded to the Inventory of Stressful Events in Adolescence - IEEA; the second (qualitative) sample consisted of 1 (one) Dialogue Group - DG, with a total of 32 students from the 1st year of high school, held in one of the participating schools of the first stage of the research. The purpose of the DG was to understand perceptions, meanings and interactions between risk factors and protection in adolescence and youth. The results indicated a very diverse scenario of stressful events in which the participants were exposed, above all, in the family and school microsystems. The survey also identified strong impacts of sexual violence on development. As a protective factor, it was found that the relations of friendship had a very important moderating role in the face of these adversities. Finally, it was discussed the need of other protective processes to be potentialized and perceived by young people, especially in the family and at school, since there are stressors that need to be addressed in an articulated way with the help of these institutions.