Researching students' wellbeing

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2799

Published 2 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2799
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2799

Letters

Doctors’ health

Researching students’ wellbeing

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Our project investigating the mental health of medical students¹developed from a team member’s post as a student welfareofficer for a London medical school in 2003.

With the support of the medical school, we designed a crosssectional questionnaire to help services develop in a more evidencebased way. The questionnaire examined the frequency of mentalhealth symptoms in medical students,² factors that could identifystudents at risk, and the support services they were using orwanted.

In 2006 the medical school withdrew its support, concerned aboutpublishing findings that might harm its reputation, particularlydata on drug and alcohol use among its students. We could notgain ethics approval without its backing. However, the schoolsaid that it would reconsider if at least two other medicalschools were involved, the drug and alcohol questions were removed,and the results from all the medical schools were merged.

In 2008 . . . [Full text of this article]

Helen Macdonald, junior doctor and former welfare officer¹, Harriet Stewart, consultant¹, Alyson Hall, honorary consultant¹, Karrie Fehilly, specialist registrar in child and adolescent psychiatry¹

¹ London

helenpmacd@hotmail.com