Caring for the health and well-being of our learners in medicine as critical actions toward high-quality care

Associations between medical students' stress, academic burnout and moral courage efficacy

BACKGROUND

Medical students, especially during the clinical years, are often exposed to breaches of safety and professionalism. These contradict personal and professional values exposing them to moral distress and to the dilemma of whether and how to act. Acting requires moral courage, i.e., overcoming fear to maintain one's core values and professional obligations. It includes speaking up and "doing the right thing" despite stressors and risks (e.g., humiliation). Acting morally courageously is difficult, and ways to enhance it are needed. Though moral courage efficacy, i.e., individuals' belief in their capability to act morally, might play a significant role, there is little empirical research on the factors contributing to students' moral courage efficacy. Therefore, this study examined the associations between perceived stress, academic burnout, and moral courage efficacy.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study among 239 medical students who completed self-reported questionnaires measuring perceived stress, academic burnout ('exhaustion,' 'cynicism,' 'reduced professional efficacy'), and moral courage efficacy (toward others' actions and toward self-actions). Data analysis via Pearson's correlations, regression-based PROCESS macro, and independent t-tests for group differences.

RESULTS

The burnout dimension of 'reduced professional efficacy' mediated the association between perceived stress and moral courage efficacy toward others' actions. The burnout dimensions 'exhaustion' and 'reduced professional efficacy' mediated the association between perceived stress and moral courage efficacy toward self-actions.

CONCLUSIONS

The results emphasize the importance of promoting medical students' well-being-in terms of stress and burnout-to enhance their moral courage efficacy. Medical education interventions should focus on improving medical students' professional efficacy since it affects both their moral courage efficacy toward others and their self-actions. This can help create a safer and more appropriate medical culture.

Professional commitment and related factors among nursing undergraduates: A latent profile analysis

OBJECTIVE

To identify different subgroups of nursing professional commitment among nursing undergraduates and to analyze the related factors of the different subgroups.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study using the professional commitment scale with 430 nursing undergraduates was conducted. Latent profile analysis was used to explore the nursing students' professional commitment subgroups and using multivariate logistic regression to analyze the related factors of nursing professional commitment.

RESULTS

The overall mean score for professional commitment in nursing was (75.07 ± 14.715). There were three different subgroups of professional commitment characteristics, namely the "high professional commitment group" (20.465 %), the "medium professional commitment group" (66.279 %), and the "low professional commitment group" (13.256 %). Dissatisfaction with clinical placement (OR = 3.556, p = 0.008) and self-enrollment (OR = 0.186, p = 0.002) were significantly related factors for low-level and medium-level nursing commitment groups. Students' origin in western China (OR = 1.869, p = 0.042) significantly influenced the medium-level specialty commitment group.

CONCLUSIONS

Most nursing undergraduates have been categorized in the "medium professional commitment group". Students who were dissatisfied with their clinical experience and chose the nursing profession involuntarily were the main factors for low-level and medium-level nursing professional commitment. The clinical practice environment should be further improved to enhance the clinical experience satisfaction of nursing undergraduates; at the same time, the professional value cultivation of students whose choice of nursing profession was not made by themselves should be strengthened to improve the level of professional commitment of nursing undergraduates.

Time to rise to the challenge of truly implementing patient-centered care and shared decision-making in Israel: The educational and policy mission

Five years ago, Israel was perceived to be on the verge of implementing shared decision making (SDM). However, as presented in this paper, SDM in Israel remains relatively unexplored, is implemented in only few research interventions, and is rarely taught in medical schools or continuing education. Furthermore, policies on patient-centered care and SDM are limited and lack clear regulations and training on how to apply them. This situation is of concern. The paper describes the current state of SDM, identifying higher-level barriers to implementation. They include the need to address healthcare professionals' attitudes regarding patients and relationships; the need to rename and clearly define SDM terminology in Hebrew; the need to place SDM in the larger context and training of PCC; and the call for the development of clear policies, regulations, and training truly to rise to the need for national implementation of PCC and SDM.