You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Medical education and training
Original research
Interventions to promote medical student well-being: an overview of systematic reviews
  1. Amber Bennett-Weston1,
  2. Leila Keshtkar1,
  3. Max Jones2,
  4. Christopher Sanders2,
  5. Cara Lewis3,
  6. Keith Nockels4,
  7. Josie Solomon1,5,
  8. Jeremy Howick1
  1. 1 Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, Leicester Medical School, University of Leicester College of Life Sciences, Leicester, UK
  2. 2 Leicester Medical School, University of Leicester College of Life Sciences, Leicester, UK
  3. 3 Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
  4. 4 University Library, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  5. 5 University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Amber Bennett-Weston; abw13{at}leicester.ac.uk

Abstract

Objective To conduct an overview of systematic reviews that explore the effectiveness of interventions to enhance medical student well-being.

Design Overview of systematic reviews.

Data sources The Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, MEDLINE, APA PsychInfo, CINAHL and Scopus were searched from database inception until 31 May 2023 to identify systematic reviews of interventions to enhance medical student well-being. Ancestry searching and citation chasing were also conducted.

Data extraction and synthesis The Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews V.2 tool was used to appraise the quality of the included reviews. A narrative synthesis was conducted, and the evidence of effectiveness for each intervention was rated.

Results 13 reviews (with 94 independent studies and 17 616 students) were included. The reviews covered individual-level and curriculum-level interventions. Individual interventions included mindfulness (n=12), hypnosis (n=6), mental health programmes (n=7), yoga (n=4), cognitive and behavioural interventions (n=1), mind-sound technology (n=1), music-based interventions (n=1), omega-3 supplementation (n=1), electroacupuncture (n=1) and osteopathic manipulative treatment (n=1). The curriculum-level interventions included pass/fail grading (n=4), problem-based curriculum (n=2) and multicomponent curriculum reform (n=2). Most interventions were not supported by sufficient evidence to establish effectiveness. Eleven reviews were rated as having ‘critically low’ quality, and two reviews were rated as having ‘low’ quality.

Conclusions Individual-level interventions (mindfulness and mental health programmes) and curriculum-level interventions (pass/fail grading) can improve medical student well-being. These conclusions should be tempered by the low quality of the evidence. Further high-quality research is required to explore additional effective interventions to enhance medical student well-being and the most efficient ways to implement and combine these for maximum benefit.

  • medical education & training
  • health workforce
  • mental health
  • systematic review

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-082910

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

    View Full Text

    Supplementary materials

    • Supplementary Data

      This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.

    Footnotes

    • X @a_bennettweston, @jeremyhowick

    • Contributors JH and ABW were involved in the conceptualisation of this research. KN developed the search strategy. ABW, LK, CS, MJ and CL screened titles and abstracts and full texts and completed data extraction and quality assessment. JH acted as a third senior reviewer to resolve discrepancies. ABW drafted the manuscript and JH and JS further developed it. All authors made substantial contributions to revisions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. ABW is the guarantor.

    • Funding ABW, LK, JH and JS are supported by the Stoneygate Trust (grant number not applicable). The funder had no role in the conceptualisation, design, data collection, data analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.