Common mental disorders and subjective well-being: Emotional training among medical students based on positive psychology

Abstract

Introduction: The prevalence of common mental disorders among medical students is globally high. However, medical students tend to seek less professional help to treat their mental health issues. Hence, ways have been devised to reduce emotional stress in this population.

Objective: The current study uses positive psychology techniques to increase subjective well-being (SWB) in order to reduce symptons of common mental disorders (CMD) in medical students (MS).

Methods: The study comprised two groups: intervention group (n = 37) and control group (n = 32). Throughout seven weeks, the intervention group had meetings focused on emotions, mental health of medical students, gratitude, appreciation, optimism, resilience, qualities and virtues. The control group attended conventional medical psychology classes (psychosomatic aspects in clinical illness, for example).

Results: The intervention group presented average increase by 2.85 points in the positive emotions scale; average increase by 2.53 points in the satisfaction-with-life scale; and average decrease by 1.79 points in the SRQ-20 scale, when it was compared to the control group. The intervention effect size was moderate.

Conclusion: Use of techniques to increase SWB may reduce CMD in MS, even if these techniques do not diminish negative emotions.

Fig 1. Didactic division of positive emotions according to positive psychology.