Just 10 “CLEQS” Yields Formative Evaluation of the Clinical Learning Environment

Abstract

Student Mental Health, a collaboration between 4 institutions to develop a standard of investigating a wide variety of understudied mental health domains using an instrument we call the Keck Mental Health Survey (KMHS). The KMHS collects data to achieve 3 primary goals. The first is to provide individual students with information about their personal mental health. The second is to give each institution data about mental health among their students to plan for wellness programs. Finally, the consortium uses the KMHS to investigate trends in medical student mental health on a national level. Approach:The KMHS was administered in the Fall semesters of 2019 and 2020. A wellness representative introduced the survey and students in the first 3 years of medical school completed it during class time. Fourth-year medical students were emailed a link to the survey with a video introduction and given 2 weeks to complete it. The KMHS included 16 self-report instruments previously shown to be valid in the general U.S. adult population to measure a variety of psychological conditions. In accordance with the first goal of the consortium, the survey provided personalized information to students about their results. To address the second goal, descriptive statistics were obtained to determine the proportion of students that fall into the at-risk categories of the instruments included in the KMHS. Finally, to accomplish the third goal, inferential statistical tests and modeling including paired t tests and regression will be conducted following completion of data collection for the 2020-2021 administration of the KMHS, which concludes in January.