Bennett-Weston, A. orcid.org/0000-0001-5981-9393, Keshtkar, L. orcid.org/0000-0001-5249-3589, Jones, M. et al. (5 more authors) (2024) Interventions to promote medical student well-being: an overview of systematic reviews. BMJ Open, 14 (5). e082910. ISSN 2044-6055
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. 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/. |
Keywords: | health workforce; medical education & training; mental health; systematic review; Humans; Students, Medical; Systematic Reviews as Topic; Mental Health; Curriculum; Mindfulness |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > Health Sciences School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 17 Jan 2025 17:07 |
Last Modified: | 17 Jan 2025 17:07 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BMJ |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-082910 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:221891 |