ABSTRACT
Mental health issues amongst university students are rife. Increasing mental health literacy and an emphasis on wellbeing have revealed the importance of having a plethora of resources available to students surrounding mental health support. The Welfare Hub is a student-led project created at the University of Nottingham Medical School to destigmatise mental health discussion, enhance mental health education, and share experiences of healthcare professionals regarding their mental health and university support. In this paper, we incorporate discussion around improvements the Welfare Hub can make regarding its content and how to best support future students. This project identified that the Welfare Hub's Instagram account was closely associated with mental health awareness and education, and that the best performing posts were those that offered positive connotations of support relevant to medical students and those that detailed lived medical student's experiences and advice. The Welfare Hub has had a positive impact on committee members and allowed them to fulfil their desires regarding destigmatising and discussing mental health. Future development following these findings aim to produce more educational and supportive content, develop connections of the Welfare Hub within the University and other institutions, and host events for the well-being of medical students.
What is the Welfare Hub?
Evidence suggests medical students experience elevated levels of anxiety, burnout, depression, and suicidal ideation compared to students from other courses but are less likely to seek help for these issues due to mental health stigma.1 These factors contribute to worsening academic attainment, reduced competency, and increased rate of errors in clinical practice and leaving medical school altogether.2
The Welfare Hub (WH), a student-led project, was developed at the University of Nottingham in 2020. It started with a student survey of emotional health gaps and supported by the pastoral team at the medical school. We aimed to promote student wellbeing and reduce mental health stigma. The WH is governed by a committee of medical students with designated responsibilities, consisting of an elected president, vice president, general secretary, treasurer, welfare officer, two editors, two creatives, and a clinical years representative.
We established an Instagram account (@welfarehub.nottsmed) that created posts, devised by medical students, on typical issues that medical students encounter, shared positive affirmations to students prior to examinations, and distributed educational posts regarding mental health conditions. Posts for the WH are distributed on Instagram and aim to convey the post topic informatively and accessibly.
This project aimed to identify which Instagram posts performed best, utilising Instagram analytical data (Instagram likes and accounts reached) from 26 October 2022 to 23 January 2023. These data were supported by an Instagram poll of followers in December 2022 to gauge perceptions of the WH and the content that it produced. Each committee member was also asked to complete a reflection of their experience within the WH. A deductive thematic analysis explored these responses.
The data synthesised would inform the future workplan: how to develop posts, increase account engagement, and enhance integration of the WH within the wider university community.
Results
By 23 January 2023, the Welfare Hub had 468 followers. Results identified the best performing posts as those that offered positive connotations of support relevant to students and those that detailed lived medical student's experiences and delivered advice regarding this. The highest performing posts were ‘Good luck’ messages before the commencement of examinations or release of examination results.
The Instagram poll of followers illustrated 66.7% of respondents found the WH useful, and 42.9% voted the WH ‘most helpful with mental health awareness'. The favourite series, with 58.3% of responses, was the ‘Let's talk about med school’ series, which discussed pertinent experiences students faced at medical school, including burnout and perceived competition between peers.
Committee members for the 2022/2023 academic year detailed experiences in the WH, motivation for involvement, personal achievements, and future plans. Eight of ten committee members responded. They reported the WH allowed extension of their interest and knowledge of student education in mental health. Thematic analysis of student responses is presented in Table 1.
Results of deductive thematic analysis of Welfare Hub 2022/2023 committee reflections
How will the welfare hub develop, following this research?
Our research revealed that the most popular Instagram posts showed support to students before the commencement of stressful events, such as examinations and results day. This reinforced the fact that followers' favourite posts included the ‘Let's talk about med school’ series which shared and empathised with student experiences. However, poll data showed that despite the popularity of particular posts, followers most closely associated the WH with mental health awareness. This emphasised the importance of aligning educational content with follower perception of the Welfare Hub's values.
Going forward, it appears beneficial to continue the current strategy, utilising Instagram posts and blending educational content with motivational and experience-sharing posts surrounding medical school. There are plans to enhance and develop multimedia content in collaboration with the University, aiming to recruit students as content creators, detailing their personal journeys and experiences at medical school. This should increase the Welfare Hub's profile within the wider medical school community. Posts will align with values of the WH around mental health awareness and education, whilst staying relevant to medical students at the University of Nottingham. By generating content which elicit positive students responses, we hope to introduce a virtuous cycle of further follower engagement.
Analysis of committee reflections allowed evaluation of the benefits to student-led Instagram post creators, in addition to student response to posts. It led to increased mental health literacy amongst committee members with increased fulfilment after achieving goals to reduce mental health stigma.
Project limitations
Analytical data is constantly changing and cannot be collected for more than 90 days prior, which introduced challenges for up-to-date data.
The poll had low responses (18) compared to follower count (468), with duplicate responses, and committee members were able to vote on the poll which could positively bias results.
Conclusion
Mental health issues remain rife at medical school. Peer-led mental health support and education generated for, and by, medical students proved useful. This project concluded that content sharing the lived experiences of students performed well and refined points for future development.
- © Royal College of Physicians 2023. All rights reserved.
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- No citing articles found.