What keeps medical students healthy and well? A systematic review of observational studies on protective factors for health and well-being during medical education

Thomas Kötter,Linda Sanftenberg,Karen Voigt,Christian Vajda,Henna Riemenschneider,Stephan Fuchs,Marcus Heise

doi:10.1186/s12909-019-1532-z

Abstract

BackgroundDespite the growing evidence of a negative impact of medical school on students’ health and well-being, little is known about protective factors for staying healthy and well during medical education. Therefore, a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies aiming to identify such predictors was conducted.MethodsMedline, Embase, and PsychInfo were systematically searched by using preselected MeSH terms to identify English- and German-language peer-reviewed articles (observational studies) examining predictors for medical students’ health and well-being, published between January 2001 and April 2018. Two authors independently selected abstracts reporting predictors for medical students’ health and well-being. Further, two authors extracted information from the identified studies, needed for methodological quality assessment of the studies, as well as for comprehensive description of identified predictors.ResultsFrom 5013 hits in the database search, six observational studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. These studies were of heterogeneous design and quality. They featured a wide variety of health and well-being related outcomes and of its predictors. Lower levels of perceived stress, as well as lower levels of neuroticism were found to predict better health-related outcomes.ConclusionsFurther research, by using harmonized tools for the assessment of outcomes, as well as predictors, is needed to determine what keeps students healthy and well during medical education. Identifying protective factors is an essential prerequisite for the design of evidence-based health-promoting interventions.

Highlights

Despite the growing evidence of a negative impact of medical school on students’ health and wellbeing, little is known about protective factors for staying healthy and well during medical education
Longitudinal, observational studies published in English or German that reported any protective factors for medical students’ health and well-being were included, regardless of length of follow-up and using any outcomes related to health and well-being of medical students
Study selection We identified 5013 references in our literature search, of which 71 studies were potentially eligible for the systematic review

Summary

Introduction

Despite the growing evidence of a negative impact of medical school on students’ health and wellbeing, little is known about protective factors for staying healthy and well during medical education. Above all neuroticism, Apart from the personal suffering, physicians’ impaired health and well-being may have a negative impact on the quality and availability of health services [4]. Against this background, the importance of physician self-care has been included in the most recent version of the Declaration of Geneva [5]. Effective interventions are needed to address the decrease of health and well-being among medical students during medical school. To design and implement evidence-based health-promoting interventions, we need to know what

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion