The health and wellbeing of health science students are key to enable the provision of the best possible healthcare services. There are growing concerns around issues such as burnout, anxiety, and depression among these future professionals, potentially originating from the challenging combination of academic and clinical commitments inherent in their training. While progress has been made in exploring the prevalence of these mental health challenges, further investigation is needed to understand the causes and suggest prevention and intervention strategies to improve the wellbeing of health science students.
In this Research Topic, we seek to understand and delve deeper into the mental health of health science university students. The primary objective is to discuss the specific stressors associated with both academic coursework and clinical interactions, which may contribute to burnout, anxiety, or depression. By examining these factors, we hope to address critical questions regarding how and why these mental health issues develop and persist. This Research Topic will consider occupational health risks within academic settings, as acknowledged by the World Health Organization, to provide targeted solutions for reducing the incidence of mental health disorders among health science students.
To gather further insights in mental health challenges in health science education, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• The prevalence and impact of burnout, anxiety, stress, and depression among university health science students
• The influence of factors such as academic expectations and clinical practice on students’ mental health
• Strategies for prevention and intervention to improve student wellbeing in educational settings
• Comparative analyses of mental health trends in different health science disciplines
• Discussions of occupational health in health science university environments
We invite a variety of article types, including original research, reviews, and meta-analyses focusing on these pressing issues.
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
- Brief Research Report
- Case Report
- Clinical Trial
- Community Case Study
- Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
- Data Report
- Editorial
- General Commentary
- Hypothesis and Theory
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Keywords: nursing education, medical education, healthcare students, depression, anxiety, burnout, occupational health, university
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
