Students' psychological distress in an English program embedded in a medical school in a non-English speaking country

Abstract

ObjectivesTo clarify if medical students in an English program in a non-English speaking country are exposed to a higher risk of psychological distress compared to comparable local medical students.MethodsAn online survey was conducted for all medical students both in the English program exclusively for international students (n=235) and in the local program (n=1043) at the Palacky University in the Czech Republic. The Medical Student Well-Being Index (MSWBI) was used to define the student’s psychological distress. Logistic regressions were conducted to find an effect of the study program on the students’ psychological distress, adjusted by age, study year, marital status, residential status, and frequency of contact with significant others, stratified by gender.Results44% (n=68) of the respondents in the English program screened positive for psychological distress, and 53% (n=221) in the local program. There was an interaction between gender and program in the association with psychological distress. The higher prevalence of psychological distress in the local program was likely attributed to female students who had frequent contacts with their significant others.ConclusionsPsychological distress was highly prevalent in a Czech medical school, but there was no overall difference between the international students in the English program and the comparable local medical students.

Psychological distress and academic self-perception among international medical students: the role of peer social support

“…This finding is in line with Rospenda et al ’s findings that, among women, higher levels of social support outside of medical school were associated with worse academic performance [ 43 ]. This finding may be also related to our previous findings that medical students having frequent contact with significant others experienced significant psychological distress [ 28 ]. The role of social support from significant others for medical students needs to be investigated in further studies.…”

“…Detailed methods of the data collection in the international medical program are described elsewhere [ 28 ]. Briefly, we invited all international medical students (from the 1st year to the 6th year) to complete a web-based survey in December 2012.…”

Medical education without borders

“…Where the programmes are discussed, diverging perspectives on their characteristics and purpose emerge. First, the terminology used for these programmes catches the eye: 'International Medical Programmes' (Gibbs et al, 2021;Yamada et al, 2013), 'English parallel courses' , 'English stream programmes' , and 'offshore medical schools' (Eckhert, 2010;Halperin & Goldberg, 2016;Morgan et al, 2017). All these different terms refer to the same type of medical education.…”