Undergraduate mental health issues: the challenge of the second year of study

Exploring access to support services for medical students: recommendations for enhancing wellbeing support

BACKGROUND

Medical students have reported facing unique challenges in their academic journey that can have a significant impact on their mental health and wellbeing; therefore, their access to support services and wellbeing resources has been deemed crucial for dealing effectively with the various challenges they tend to face. While previous research has highlighted certain barriers affecting medical students' help-seeking and access to wellbeing support more generally, there is a pressing need for more in-depth research into the factors that may hinder or facilitate medical students' acceptability and uptake of the wellbeing resources available to them within institutional contexts. The current study aims to explore students' perceptions and utilization of wellbeing interventions and welfare resources within a medical school setting, as well as the factors influencing their help-seeking attitudes or behaviours. Additionally, it seeks to instigate medical students' deeper reflections on potential enhancements that could be applied to wellbeing resources so that they are better suited to address their needs.

METHODS

This study employed a qualitative design, involving semi-structured interviews and a series of focus groups with medical students at the University of Nottingham (UK). Post-interview, focus groups were deemed necessary to gain deeper insights into emerging findings from the interviews regarding students' views on wellbeing support services. Qualitative data from the interviews was subjected to thematic analysis while a hybrid thematic analytic approach was applied for the focus group data in order to allow for both pre-defined themes from the interviews and newly emerging patterns to be identified and analysed in a combined manner.

RESULTS

Twenty-five participants took part in the semi-structured interviews and twenty-two participants were recruited in a total of seven focus groups. Thematic analysis findings identified several key barriers to medical students' accessing wellbeing resources, including difficulties in finding relevant information, lengthy processes and difficulties receiving prompt help in urgent situations, learning environment issues, confidentiality concerns, and stigma around mental health. Student suggestions for the enhancement of wellbeing provision were centered around proposed improvements in the format that the relevant information was presented and in the structure underlying the delivery of support services.

CONCLUSION

The study findings shed light on multi-faceted factors contributing to medical students' challenges in accessing support services; and provided a deeper understanding of medical students' wellbeing needs through a consolidation of their recommendations for the implementation of practical steps to address these needs. These steps can potentially inform key medical education stakeholders so that they can actively and proactively foster more supportive environments that may help improve medical students' help-seeking, as well as their acceptability and uptake of wellbeing services.

Impact of Metaverse Cultural Communication on the Mental Health of International Students in China: Highlighting Effects of Healthcare Anxiety and Cyberchondria

Objectives: Students' mental health issues often adversely affect their physical as well as emotional well- being. Mental health includes much more than the absence of mental illnesses or diseases. The current study evaluated international students' mental health through a cultural communication approach in Metaverse to examine the moderating influences of cyberchondria and healthcare anxiety in the context of China. The idea of virtual reality in the Metaverse is currently one of the world's most significant and contentious issues. It has influenced the growth of the Internet, which directly affects the physical world. Methods: The data extraction method employed in the study was the questionnaire method, distributed to the Chinese Students. Various units for the variables were used in the questionnaire development, which aided in assessing the variable using measurement scales. Results: The findings showed a substantial connection between internal Chinese students at medical universities' mental health and cross-cultural dialogue in the Metaverse. Healthcare anxiety was observed to have a significant moderating effect, but cyberchondria had a negligible effect on student mental health and cultural communication in the Metaverse. Conclusion: The current study would help foster cross-cultural interaction among international and home-country students to foster a better interchange of cultural values.

What's Worrying Our Students? Increasing Worry Levels over Two Decades and a New Measure of Student Worry Frequency and Domains

Background

The frequency and severity of mental health problems in student populations have been a growing cause for concern worldwide, and studies have identified measures of a number of mental health symptoms that have been steadily increasing in frequency and intensity over the past 20-25 years.

Methods

In two studies we investigate the levels and domains of pathological worrying in university student participants. Study 1 is a retrospective study of Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) data collected between 2001 and 2019. Study 2 describes the development of the Student Worry Questionnaire, a short and easily delivered measure of student worrying that identifies both frequency of worry as well as the student-relevant domains across which worrying occurs.

Results

Study 1 revealed a steady increase in student worry scores of around 20% between 2001 and 2019, with a significant positive correlation between year of data collection and mean PSWQ score. The domain scores in Study 2 indicated that academic work was a significantly higher worry than any of the other domains, and worries about intimate relationships and 'what people think of me' were also worries that scored higher than either financial or health worries.

Conclusions

The present studies indicate that pathological worrying can be added to the list of anxiety- and stress-related symptoms that have been shown to be on the increase in student populations in recent decades, and we discuss whether these increases represent a greater willingness to report symptoms or a genuine increase in experienced symptoms over time.

Resilience and mindfulness in nurse training on an undergraduate curriculum

PURPOSE

The aim is to investigate what relationships exist between resilience and mindfulness in undergraduate nurse training and how these might contribute to well-being.

DESIGN AND METHODS

One hundred and six students participated in this cross-sectional study. Multivariate and bivariate procedures were utilized to assess the differences between students' demographics, academic resilience, and mindfulness.

FINDINGS

The findings suggested that acceptance and attention within mindfulness were important for resilience. Students who had higher levels of academic resilience also had higher indexes of mindfulness.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

A key implication is that learning and practice areas should ensure that well-being, mindfulness, and resilience literacy are key issues for students in training. This is at a time when mental health support and staff retention are foremost in policymakers' minds.