A Peer-Support and Mindfulness Program to Improve the Mental Health of Medical Students

Moir, Fiona; Henning, Marcus A.; Hassed, Craig; Moyes, Simon; Elley, C Raina

doi:10.1080/10401334.2016.1153475

Cited by 70 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Many factors can precipitate psychological illnesses among undergraduates, such as adjustment to the novel school environment, information overload, lack of leisure time, financial constraints, family-related stressors and the competition for higher grades [ 4 , 26 , 27 ]. Other factors include poor coping strategies, study skills and motivation [ 28 – 30 ]. With regard to most of these stressors, ‘resilience’ is an attribute that needs to be promoted among students, especially those vulnerable to depressive symptoms [ 28 – 30 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other factors include poor coping strategies, study skills and motivation [ 28 – 30 ]. With regard to most of these stressors, ‘resilience’ is an attribute that needs to be promoted among students, especially those vulnerable to depressive symptoms [ 28 – 30 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A literature search using PubMed, ERIC and Google Scholar found limited studies that compared depressive symptoms amongst students of different HP schools [ 30 – 34 ]. Most of the studies involved students of one discipline.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Health professions’ students have an alarming prevalence of depressive symptoms: exploration of the associated factors

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThere is a need to better understand the depression phenomenon and to clarify why some students become depressed and others don’t. The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of depressive symptoms among health professions’ (HP) students, and to explore the association between socio-demographic factors (e.g. year of study, discipline, gender) and depressive symptoms.MethodsIn this descriptive–analytic, cross-sectional study, stratified proportionate sampling strategy was used to select the study sample during the academic year 2012–2013. The students from four health professions’ schools situated within a large, public university located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were screened for depressive symptoms using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI II). Chi-square test, student t-test and ANOVA were used to compare different categorical variables.ResultsThe overall response rate was 79.0 %, the highest among dental students 86.1 %, and lowest among nursing (49.7 %). The overall prevalence rate of depressive symptoms was 47.0 %; it was highest among dentistry students (51.6 %), followed by medicine (46.2 %), applied medical sciences (AMS) (45.7 %) and lowest among nursing students (44.2 %). A statistically significant association was found between the presence and severity of depressive symptoms on one hand and the female gender (p = 0.000) and year of study on the other hand.ConclusionThis study seems to indicate an alarming rate of depressive symptoms. Female gender, dentistry, the third year for all schools and fifth year for medicine and dentistry have the highest association with depressive symptoms. Future studies may be needed to explore further the reasons and explanations for the variation in the prevalence of depressive symptoms among these groups. The factors that deserve exploration include curricular variables and personal factors such as the students’ study skills.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0794-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Health professions’ students have an alarming prevalence of depressive symptoms: exploration of the associated factors

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To our knowledge, only one peer‐led mental health programme has been described for medical students. The study found non‐statistically significant improvements in mental health indicators, recommending longer training for peer facilitators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

A mental health programme for medical students

Sugumar

Fleming

Ogden

2019

The Clinical Teacher

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Background It is critical that medical educators actively address the growing mental health burden affecting medical students. The motivation to present a mental health programme to medical students at the University of Tasmania arose in response to a recent tragedy within the student body. This emphasised the necessity of developing an effective skill‐based initiative for our students. We describe a peer‐led programme targeting mental health borne from this event. The aim of this article is to outline the development of this programme and to report on the preliminary feedback. Methods This article presents a peer‐led programme, delivered to medical students in the fourth year of a 5‐year undergraduate degree by peers from within the student cohort. We used a multipronged approach, with the programme consisting of a five‐session workshop and a supplementary resource book. A post‐workshop survey was administered as formative evaluation. A total of 19 out of 20 participants responded to the survey. Results and discussion All respondents agreed that the programme helped to reduce the stigma of mental health disease in medicine and improved both peer support and self‐care practices. All students agreed that they would recommend this programme to peers, and that it provided a welcome opportunity to talk about mental health and normalised mental health concerns. Key to the success of the programme was its peer‐led nature. The programme is an example of an innovative and effective programme design that can help to guide medical educators to further support the next generation of medical practitioners with their mental health skills.

show abstract

“…Even twenty years ago, it was known that mindfulness training reduced anxiety and increased empathy in medical students [4], which are also clearly core skills for a doctor [14]. Mindfulness training has, therefore, been applied to the medical education context [15][16][17]. In addition to its use as a therapeutic practice, the theory and application of mindfulness has been embedded in some medical curricula both formally and informally [18,19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Mindfulness and Physical Exercises for Medical Students: A Systematic Review

Henning¹,

Park²,

Moir³

et al. 2018

obm icm

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

A Peer-Support and Mindfulness Program to Improve the Mental Health of Medical Students

Cited by 70 publications

References 37 publications

Health professions’ students have an alarming prevalence of depressive symptoms: exploration of the associated factors

Health professions’ students have an alarming prevalence of depressive symptoms: exploration of the associated factors

A mental health programme for medical students

Integrating Mindfulness and Physical Exercises for Medical Students: A Systematic Review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About