Application of a classroom-based positive psychology education course for Chinese medical students to increase their psy
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Application of a classroom-based positive psychology education course for Chinese medical students to increase their psychological well-being: a pilot study Xiao-Qin Zhang* , Bao-Shuai Zhang and Meng-Die Wang
Abstract Background: Anxiety and depression have been increasing among Chinese medical students. The psychological well-being of Chinese medical students has become a critical focus of attention for the medical education community. Increasing evidence shows that positive psychology interventions can be effective in the enhancement of psychological well-being, and may help to prevent depressive symptoms in university students. In the present study, we aimed to explore the potential effect of positive psychology education on improving the mental health of Chinese medical students. Methods: An 8-week classroom-based positive psychology intervention workshop, which was established as an elective course embedded in the regular school curriculum, was conducted at the School of Medicine, South China University of Technology (SCUT), China. Undergraduate medical students of the institute in year-2 or year-3 of academic study participated in this training course voluntarily. The participants’ self-reported data on the hope scale, life satisfaction scale, subjective happiness scale, and depression and anxiety scale were collected and analyzed at pre-course (n = 61) and post-course (n = 49) times. The investigation was also validated with an independent cohort of students who enrolled in the course in the year following the preliminary study. Results: The analyses showed that the psychological well-being of the participants were improved after the intervention. Their mean scores on the hope scale, life satisfaction scale and subjective happiness scale were significantly improved (P < 0.05), while their symptom levels of depression and anxiety were significantly reduced (P < 0.01). A similar trend was observed in the validation cohort. Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest that positive psychology education holds promise for improving psychological well-being among Chinese medical students. Further investigations with larger and well-controlled sample cohorts may yield more convincing and reliable results. Keywords: Positive psychology, Chinese medical students, Psychological well-being
* Correspondence: [email protected] School of Medicine, South China University of Technology (SCUT), Guangzhou 510006, People’s Republic of China © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If m
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