Medical students’ attitudes towards well-being and welfare: a systematic review protocol

Abstract

Introduction Medical education poses serious stressors on medical students, as they report overall higher rates of psychiatric comorbidities compared with students enrolled in other university-level courses. The high rates of poor well-being reported should be considered a concern, as students represent the future workforce of healthcare professionals. Although there has been an increased interest towards well-being and burn-out in medical students, there is still much to be elucidated. Indeed, there is an overall lack of understanding of which attitudes medical students have towards well-being and welfare, something that could be used to develop targeted practice to improve medics’ quality of life and reduce overall burn-out.This review will aim at evaluating and reporting the current research available on medical students’ attitudes towards well-being and welfare. We will take into account which countries have published data on the topic, and we will analyse papers written during the COVID-19 period separately, giving this particular time frame a separate outlook.Methods and analysis This systematic review protocol has been developed following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols guidelines. A systematic search including “medical students” AND “wellbeing” AND “perceptions” was carried out on MEDLINE, Embase and Scopus databases. The Mixed Method Appraisal Tool will be used to assess the quality of the available studies and risk of bias. Studies will be screened using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data will be summarised narratively and in tabular forms. A narrative subgroup analysis of the COVID-19 period will be carried out, and a country-wise approach will be used to describe which areas have published relevant studies.Ethics and dissemination This will be the first systematic review looking at the reported attitudes that medical students have towards well-being and welfare. This will provide an account of the available data on the topic, and a starting point to understand where further research is needed in the future.PROSPERO registration number CRD42023471022.