Student-led approaches to mental health support

Abstract

Mental health issues amongst university students are rife. Increasing mental health literacy and an emphasis on wellbeing have revealed the importance of having a plethora of resources available to students surrounding mental health support. The Welfare Hub is a student-led project created at the University of Nottingham Medical School to destigmatise mental health discussion, enhance mental health education, and share experiences of healthcare professionals regarding their mental health and university support. In this paper, we incorporate discussion around improvements the Welfare Hub can make regarding its content and how to best support future students. This project identified that the Welfare Hub's Instagram account was closely associated with mental health awareness and education, and that the best performing posts were those that offered positive connotations of support relevant to medical students and those that detailed lived medical student's experiences and advice. The Welfare Hub has had a positive impact on committee members and allowed them to fulfil their desires regarding destigmatising and discussing mental health. Future development following these findings aim to produce more educational and supportive content, develop connections of the Welfare Hub within the University and other institutions, and host events for the well-being of medical students.