Part of WPA's educational mission is to provide high-quality education to all its stakeholders. Having open access to important articles on mental health is one of the key ways knowledge can be shared with stakeholders living in different parts of the world.
WPA Secretary for Education, Roger Ng, was recently involved in a survey of medical students wellbeing conducted by the British Medical Association (BMA), the results of which were recently published in the International Review of Psychiatry. Dr Ng's role was to lead the survey in Hong Kong. Thanks to this role, and the support of the journal's publisher and editor-in-chief, three months free online access has been granted to the special survey issue of the journal.
The survey was administered to medical students throughout twelve countries across the globe.
"As future influencers of public mental health, enhancing medical students' awareness of their own mental health is especially important." says Dr Ng. "Poor mental health is associated with poor academic performance and poor clinical judgement. Moreover, a personal awareness of mental health issues also enhances awareness of mental health problems among their patients and peers. This helps to reduce stigma towards mental health problems and towards psychiatry as a profession."
The survey found that poor mental health was very common among medical students and that they seldom sought mental health care.
"There were some individual variations which might be related to cultural issues." said Dr Ng.
"I encourage WPA members and stakeholders - especially our Early Career and Medical Student communities - to take the opportunity to review this special issue of the International Review of Psychiatry while it is free" said Dr Ng.
