Contemporary Issues in Well-being of Undergraduate Clinical Students: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Well-being is a complex concept with objective and subjective elements that contribute to life satisfaction. Medical students experience inevitable transition from pre-clinical to clinical training with increasingly more independence and responsibility. This study aimed to identify well-being issues in undergraduate clinical students. The emotional, physical, social, spiritual, occupational and intellectual aspects of well-being were focused on. A thorough literature search was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Studies reporting issues from the six aspects of well-being in undergraduate clinical students, and published in peer-reviewed journals in English language from the year 2000 to 2020 with full-text available online were included. The initial search from PubMed, OVID Medline, Psych INFO and CINAHL Plus retrieved 623 articles with 51 studies included in this review. Evidence from the previous studies demonstrated poor well-being among undergraduate clinical students. Stress, lack of exercise, low peer and family support, and mistreatment by clinicians and patients were common well-being issues encountered. Based on this literature review, the five aspects of well-being except the emotional aspect were less explored. Thus, it will be of interest to investigate well-being issues among Malaysian undergraduate clinical students from the physical and occupational aspects, which are further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identify possible contributing factors. Undergraduate clinical students are faced with several well-being issues. Thus, early detection of these issues is important to avoid devastating consequences to students and patients.