Mental health support services for medical students: a systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: Considering the high prevalence of mental health problems among medical students, medical schools should be ethically committed to promote student’s mental health, offering health services and prevention strategies. Objective: The objective of this systematic review is to identify scientific publications on mental health services offered by Brazilian universities to medical students, as well as the professionals involved and the types of interventions most often offered. Method: Systematic literature review, following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA). The Scielo, PubMed/Medline, Lilacs, ERIC, The Cochrane Library and CAPES databases were searched for studies published until August 2020, as well as theses and dissertations. The studies were screened, selected, analyzed and relevant data were extracted by two independent reviewers. Results: 16 studies were included. The identified mental health services resort to different strategies towards a common goal of promoting medical students’ mental health. The interventions most frequently found in these services are brief psychotherapy, psychiatric care, psychological-educational guidance and mentoring programs. Most services were created to attend medical students and some of these have been extended to other undergraduate students. In the analyzed services, there is a predominance of multidisciplinary teams, which differ regarding the number and categories of professionals involved. Conclusion: Mental health support services for medical students in Brazil differ both in terms of how they work within the institutions and in terms of the involved professionals. It was observed that publications on these services are scarce when compared to the number of institutions that offer the undergraduate medical course in Brazil. Aiming to expand and consolidate actions aimed at promoting medical students’ mental health in Brazilian higher education institutions, further research on this topic is required.