A Quantitative Analysis of Mandatory Wellness Assessments for 1st and 3rd Year Medical Students at the University of Ottawa

Background An alarming prevalence of burnout among medical students has been reported in many countries, including Canada. To design resilience and wellness programs, it is important to explore individual risk factors. This article presents an example of a Wellness Assessment Program for medical students at the University of Ottawa. The overall goal was to identify risk factors for poorer mental health outcomes among medical students at the University of Ottawa. Methods We conducted a quantitative study to determine risk factors for mental health, among MD-A (1st year only), MD-B (1st year only), MD-C (1st and 3rd year) and MD-D (1st and 3rd year). Results Risk factors that significantly impacted the mental health of 1st and 3rd year medical students at the University of Ottawa were physical health, sleep/fatigue, social support, education and career, stress, and drug and/or alcohol use. Students who were originally from Ottawa had more social support and less stress and drug and/or alcohol use (p < 0.001;p = 0.009). Being in the Francophone cohort had a positive effect on physical health, but a negative effect on psychological/emotional health (p = 0.039;p = 0.004). There was a statistically significant difference (p = 0.021) between the psychological/emotional health of 1st year students (M = 0.7895) and 3rd year students (M = 0.8923) when co-variates (risk factors) were not considered. Conclusion In the current context of the limited effectiveness of measures to address the negative impacts of medical education on student well-being, this study showed that efficient use of the wellness program data can identify risk factors that have a significant impact on wellness.