Objectives: This study aims to find the prevalence of mental health problems and the rates of seeking mental health care among health-related students, as well as identifying factors associated with seeking mental health care.
Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among students from the Faculty of Medicine at a university in the 2021 academic year. A total of 832 students voluntarily completed an online survey measuring mental health problems and factors influencing mental health care seeking. Descriptive and analytic statistics including t-test, Pearson's chi-square test, and binary logistic regression analysis, were used to analyze the data.
Results: Among the participants, 46.80% (n = 389) reported experiencing mental health problems, but only 16.97% (n = 66) of them sought mental health care. Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that female (OR = 2.63 (1.08 - 6.43)) and LGBTQ (OR = 4.26 (1.36 - 13.37)) students, and those with a positive attitude toward professionals (OR = 1.10 (1.02 - 0.19)), were more likely to seek formal mental health care than those who did not.
Conclusions: The study findings indicate that mental health problems are prevalent among health-related students, yet formal mental health care uptake is low. To address this issue, mental health screening programs, improved knowledge and attitudes about mental health care, and mental health training for academic staffs who work with health-related students are necessary. Future studies should explore interventions to increase the uptake of mental health services among health-related students.
Objective: To explore benefits and challenges experienced by residents and faculty when teaching in virtual settings.
Methods: This was a qualitative descriptive study employing one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 10 residents and 12 faculty in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, Canada, from May 2021 to May 2022. Participants were recruited via social media, resident and department events and email lists. Interview transcripts were analyzed descriptively and thematically employing the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework to map the identified benefits and challenges as facilitators and barriers to fulfilling teacher's basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in virtual settings.
Results: Resident and faculty participants used virtual technology not only to deliver education, but also leveraged various platform features to support their needs in virtual settings. The emerging themes within benefits and challenges of virtual teaching were amenable to mapping onto three basic psychological needs of the SDT framework - autonomy (e.g., increased accessibility; lack of control over teaching environment), competence (e.g., increased self-confidence; technological limitations hindering skill development), and relatedness (e.g., timely exchange of information; difficulty with professional identity formation).
Conclusions: Despite the inherent challenges, teaching in virtual settings can support teachers' psychological needs. Recommendations for the future delivery and facilitation of virtual learning include: giving high priority to engagement and active participation; nurturing autonomy and greater individual responsibility for learning; and creating an environment of emotional support. The SDT-informed strategies shown to be effective in in-person teaching need to be examined for their applicability in virtual settings.