The importance of formal versus informal mindfulness practice for enhancing psychological wellbeing and study engagement in a medical student cohort with a 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle program.

A 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle course for first-year medical students was associated with improvements in mental health, perceived stress, study engagement, and dispositional mindfulness. Among 205 students who completed questionnaires before and after the program, all measured outcomes improved. Improvements were interrelated: reductions in perceived stress correlated with gains in other areas, and increases in mindfulness correlated with better mental health and study engagement. The amount of informal mindfulness practice (e.g., integrating mindfulness into daily activities) was positively related to all improvements, whereas formal practice (e.g., seated meditation) was only linked to increased mindfulness scores. The findings suggest that even a brief mindfulness program can benefit medical student wellbeing, especially when students engage in informal practice.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Medical students commonly experience elevated psychological stress and poor mental health. To improve psychological wellbeing, a 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle course was delivered to a first-year undergraduate medical student cohort as part of the core curriculum. This study investigated the effects of the program on mental health, perceived stress, study engagement, dispositional mindfulness, and whether any improvements were related to amount of formal and/or informal mindfulness practice. Participants were first year undergraduate medical students (N = 310, 60% female, M = 18.60 years) with N = 205 individuals completing pre and post course questionnaires in a 5-week mindfulness-based lifestyle intervention. At pre- and post-intervention, participants completed the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, and the Mindfulness Adherence Questionnaire. Mental health, perceived stress, study engagement, and mindfulness all improved from pre- to post-intervention (all p values < .001). Improvements on these outcome measures were inter-related such that PSS change scores were negatively correlated with all other change scores, FMI change scores were positively correlated with MHC-SF and UWES-S change scores, the latter of which was positively correlated with MHC-SF change scores (all p values < .01). Finally, observed improvements in all of these outcomes were positively related to informal practice quality while improved FMI scores were related to formal practice (all p values < .05). A 5-week mindfulness-based program correlates with improving psychological wellbeing and study engagement in medical students. These improvements particularly occur when students engage in informal mindfulness practice compared to formal practice.