Assessing the mental health, physical health, and well-being of doctor of pharmacy students

Abstract

Introduction: Student well-being is a growing area of interest, though existing literature assessing multiple areas of well-being is lacking. This study aimed to evaluate the well-being of pharmacy students corresponding to three well-being domains (physical health, mental health, personal well-being and burnout) and identify characteristics associated with these domains.

Methods: An online survey adapted from various instruments was disseminated to pharmacy students from 11 pharmacy programs. Survey responses were compared using basic descriptive statistics, and Pearson's chi-Square was used for association analyses.

Results: Eight hundred thirty-six students from responded to the survey (24.3% response rate). For physical health, 59.3% of students reported sleeping <7 hours per night and 60.4% reported exercising 1 to 5 hours per week. For mental health, 24.8% of students screened positive for depression and 42% screened positive for anxiety. Lastly, 65.9% of students were at risk for decreased well-being and 63.7% for burnout. Based on association analyses, gender and pharmacy year were associated with screening positive for anxiety and burnout, gender was associated with decreased well-being, and relationship status was associated with screening positive for depression.

Conclusions: This study revealed pharmacy students are at risk for lack of sleep and exercise, depression or anxiety, decreased well-being, and burnout. Also, several characteristics were found to be associated with these negative well-being outcomes. Although response rate and participant demographics could impact the generalizability of these findings, findings further increase awareness about student well-being and inform pharmacy programs supporting well-being by better understanding student risks.

Keywords: Burnout; Mental health; Pharmacy; Physical health; Students; Well-being; Wellness.