Taking care of our future doctors: A service evaluation of a medical student mental health service
Efficiency and effectiveness of mental health services for medical students experiencing high levels of mental distress and suicidality.
Article Abstract
“Background: Studies suggest medical students experience high levels of mental distress during training but are less likely, than other students, to access care due to stigma and concerns regarding career progression. In response, The School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge supported the development of the ‘Clinical Student Mental Health Service’ to provide specialist input for this vulnerable group. This study evaluates the efficiency and effectiveness of this service.
Methods: Using mixed-methods, cross-sectional analysis of validated psychiatric rating scales and qualitative feedback, 89 responses were analysed from 143 clinical students referred, between 2015 and 2019. The care pathway included initial review by a psychiatrist, who triaged students to psychologists delivering therapies including: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Interpersonal Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy or Cognitive Analytic Therapy.
Efficiency was assessed by waiting times for psychiatry and psychology interventions, and number of sessions. Academic outcomes included school intermission and graduation. Clinical effectiveness was analysed by measuring global distress, depression, anxiety, functioning and suicidal risk. Pre/post intervention changes were captured using t-test and McNemar test with thematic analysis of qualitative feedback.
Results: Referral rates increased from 3.93% (22/560) in 2015 to 6.74% (45/668) in 2018. Median waiting times for initial psychiatric assessment and start of therapy was 26 and 33 days, respectively. All graduating students moved on to work as junior doctors.
Levels of distress, (t = 7.73, p < 0.001, df = 31), depression (t = 7.26, p < 0.001, df = 34) anxiety (Z = − 4.63, p < 0.001) and suicide risk (Z = − 3.89, p < 0.001) were significantly reduced. Participant’s functioning was significantly improved (p < 0.001, 99.5% CI 4.55 to 14.62). Feedback indicated high satisfaction with the rapid access and flexibility of the service and the team clinicians.
Conclusions: A significant proportion of medical students attending the service scored highly on validated rating scales measuring emotional distress, suicidality and mental illness. Reassuringly they benefitted from timely specialist mental health input, showing improvements in mental well-being and improved functioning. The development and design of this service might serve as an exemplar for medical schools developing similar support for their students.”
—Description from publisher
Article Access
Open Access
Jacob, R., Li, T. Y., Martin, Z., Burren, A., Watson, P., Kant, R., Davies, R., & Wood, D. F. (2020). Taking care of our future doctors: A service evaluation of a medical student mental health service. BMC Medical Education, 20(1), 172. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02075-8Â
Date
May 29, 2020
Creator(s)
Rebecca Jacob, Tsz-yan Li, Zoe Martin
Contributor(s)
Amanda Burren, Peter Watson, Rhian Kant, Richard Davies, Diana F. Wood
Topics
Self-Harm/Suicidality
Client Population
First Responders/Healthcare Workers, Students
Practice & Methods
College
Extent
11 pages
Publisher
BMC
Rights
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
APA Citation
Jacob, R., Li, T. Y., Martin, Z., Burren, A., Watson, P., Kant, R., Davies, R., & Wood, D. F. (2020). Taking care of our future doctors: A service evaluation of a medical student mental health service. BMC Medical Education, 20(1), 172. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02075-8
Audience
EMDR Therapists, Other Mental Health Professionals
Language
English
Content Type
Article, Peer-Reviewed
Access Type
External Resource, Open Access
