School in Recife has 26 students treated with anxiety attacks

A group of 26 students from a state school in Recife needed medical attention after feeling sick last Friday afternoon (8). The Pernambuco Department of Education and Sports classified the case as “anxiety symptoms”.

The young people, who are from different grades and classes, study at Erem (Reference School in High School) Ageu Magalhães, in the Tamarineira neighborhood.

According to the Recife Health Department, teams from the SAMU (Mobile Emergency Care Service), called by the school’s management, went to the place and found that the adolescents had symptoms such as sweating, low saturation and tachycardia.

All students received on-site care, without having to be taken to health facilities. In total, 16 professionals in six ambulances and two motorcycles were at the school.

The Education portfolio stated that the students were in exam week. “No student was taken to the hospital and those who showed symptoms of the type were released after the arrival of those responsible,” the note reads.

Classes are expected to resume normally on Monday (11). The tests that are no longer applied will be rescheduled.

Clinical psychologist Adriana Nascimento, who did not answer the case, emphasizes that care for the mental health of students is necessary, especially after the period of the pandemic, which left them for a long time in remote activities, without social interaction.

“I see this kind of thing as a climax. It opens wide that the mental health of these people is not being looked at, is not being taken care of. Every anxiety crisis is a way of communicating something that is not being looked at. It’s almost like a scream, It’s pretty intense,” he says.

Nascimento, who is a master’s student at the Collective Health Program at the USP School of Medicine (University of São Paulo), also says that anxiety attacks may be linked to the demands that students tend to suffer in the school environment, such as doing well on tests and pass the entrance exam, as well as circumstances lived in their homes.

“There are the issues of families that are going through very vulnerable issues. When we talk about state schools, there are families that are suffering consequences in a much more intense way in relation to hunger, unhealthy situations”, he says.