Determining the feasibility and effectiveness of brief online mindfulness training for rural medical students: a pilot study

Abstract

Background: We sought to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of a mindfulness training program, delivered online to medical students at a Rural Clinical School.Methods: An 8-week online training program was delivered to penultimate-year medical students at an Australian Rural Clinical School during 2016. Using a mixed methods approach, we measured the frequency and duration of participants' mindfulness meditation practice, and assessed changes in their perceived stress, self-compassion and compassion levels, as well as personal and professional attitudes and behaviours.Results: Forty-seven participants were recruited to the study. 50% of participants were practising mindfulness meditation at least weekly by the end of the 8-week program, and 32% reported practising at least weekly 4 months following completion of the intervention. There was a statistically significant reduction in participants' perceived stress levels and a significant increase in self-compassion at 4-month follow-up. Participants reported insights about the personal and professional impact of mindfulness meditation training as well as barriers to practice. Conclusions:The results provide preliminary evidence that online training in mindfulness meditation can be associated with reduced stress and increased self-compassion in rural medical students. More rigorous research is required to establish concrete measures of feasibility of a mindfulness meditation program.

Self-Compassion in Medical Students: A Pilot Study of Its Association With Professionalism Pressure

“…While studies in this eld often focus on a more general relationship between self-compassion, compassion fatigue, and burnout syndrome among healthcare professionals (27) or between self-compassion and well-being in medical students (28), our pilot study describes a new speci c association between self-compassion and the "good doctor" concept. Following other studies (18, [29][30][31][32], our partial results also support the importance of educational interventions for medical students that develop self-compassion, such as mindfulness-based programs (33) (34) (35).…”

Mindfulness y educación física en la población universitaria. Una revisión sistemática (Mindfulness and physical education in University population. A systematic review)

“…Además de lo anterior, las características de los participantes en términos de cultura, rama de estudios y otros, podrían influir en los resultados de las investigaciones (Stevenson, Millings & Emerson, 2019). En este sentido, mientras que la mayoría de los estudios sólo indican datos demográficos de la muestra como sexo o edad, sólo cuatro artículos seleccionan a los estudiantes en función de su rama de conocimiento; dos artículos incluyendo estudiantes de medicina (Alzahrani, et al, 2020;Moore, et al, 2020), uno de psicología (Wimmer, et al, 2020), y uno incluyendo ambas ramas de estudio (Solhaug, et al, 2016). También son pocos los estudios que indican la experiencia previa de los participantes en prácticas de mindfulness, lo cuál podría condicionar los efectos interpersonales (Brzozowski, Gillespie, Dizon, & Mitchell, 2018).…”

“…En este sentido, algunos autores aseguran que para llegar a asimilar los aspectos positivos del mindfulness es necesario, como mínimo, un proceso de ocho semanas (Kiens & Larsen, 2020;Yook, Kang & Park, 2017). Cabe destacar igualmente el artículo de Moore et al (2020), en el que, tras ocho semanas de intervención, se vuelven a tomar medidas cuantitativas y cualitativas cuatro meses después para evaluar la evolución en el tiempo de la intervención. Dentro de estos tiempos de intervención, el número de sesiones empleadas y la duración de cada sesión difieren aún en mayor medida (ver tabla 2).…”

Healing the Healers: A Phenomenological Exploration of a Brief Online Mindfulness Course on Stress, Burnout and Coping Strategies of Health Care Professionals During the COVID-19 Crisis

“…The encouraging factor was that this was achieved through a brief 4-week intervention as opposed to longer 8-week programmes [14], and via an online version instead of the normal face-to-face sessions [31]. Though there is some research to show the benefits of brief online MBIs [16], this is the first in-depth study of its kind to show the impact and process of an online MBI during such intensely stressful times with a group of heterogenous, interdisciplinary HCPs who were not familiar with each other or the facilitators.…”

“…Though there is emerging evidence indicating the effectiveness of brief online MBIs for health professionals [15], more robust mixed methods designs are needed [16]. To address this gap in the literature, this study adopted a mixed methods study design, which includes a phenomenological perspective.…”