Mind Over Medical School: A QIP on Wellbeing Interventions for Medical Students on Their Psychiatry Rotation

TL;DR

This study explores how wellbeing interventions during a psychiatry rotation affect medical students' perceptions and mental health.

Contribution

The paper introduces and evaluates specific wellbeing interventions aimed at improving medical students' mental health during psychiatry placements.

Findings

Most students attended a mandatory wellbeing lecture, and perceptions of psychiatry's culture improved significantly.

Interventions like the Open-Door Policy and Creativity Prize had lower participation but still showed positive impacts.

Stigma related to personal and colleagues' mental health remained largely unchanged despite the interventions.

Abstract

Aims: The mental wellbeing of medical students has remained a pressing issue. A recent longitudinal study named ‘less supportive’ educational environments as a contributing factor to this ill-health. Anecdotally, authors of this study have found topics taught within psychiatry can be emotionally affronting for students. During their psychiatry placement, 4th-year medical students at the University of Birmingham and Aston University were offered voluntary interventions with the aim to foster an environment of wellbeing. These included 1) an Open-Door Policy with Clinical Teaching Fellows (CTFs), 2) a formal Drop-in Session, 3) a Psychiatry Film Club Evening, and 4) a Creativity Prize, for students to submit reflective pieces in any artistic medium. A mandatory final wellbeing lecture included personal testimony from two CTFs on their own mental health journeys.

Methods: All students were asked to complete pre- and post-placement questionnaires accessed online on their first and last day, no matter their participation with interventions. During the placement, interventions were promoted after plenary lectures and on an ad-hoc basis. The post-placement questionnaire ascertained student participation in interventions. Questionnaires used a forced Likert scale to measure agreement with various statements. Statements were developed by adapting validated tools (such as ATP-30 and MICA-4) to cover three domains: perceptions of psychiatry’s culture of wellbeing; stigma toward others’ mental health; stigma toward one’s own mental health. 117 responses were gathered. All responses were anonymous and could not be linked to individual students.

Results: Of the 177 respondents: 99% attended the mandatory wellbeing lecture, 11% attended the formal CTF drop-in, 9% participated in the creativity prize, 7% joined the film club, and 3% used the informal open-door policy. Across all domains, there was a general shift toward more favourable perceptions. Notably, responses to the statement “Psychiatry prioritises the wellbeing of its clinicians” improved from a median of “agree” to “strongly agree”. This was a statistically significant change. Stigma toward personal and colleagues’ mental health remained more resistant to change.

Conclusion: Results suggest that these interventions had a meaningful impact on students’ perceptions of psychiatry as a supportive specialty. Aside from obvious personal benefit, integrating wellbeing initiatives into clinical placements may be key in promoting psychiatry as a speciality to medical students. Larger sample sizes and additional data collection may be needed to detect more nuanced effects of these interventions: particularly in areas concerning self-stigma. Incorporating free-text responses in future evaluations could provide valuable qualitative insights into students’ experiences.