How are Veterinary students coping with University?
Hello lovely people, I hope you have all had a great week in the sun, it is truly a miracle that I am managing to write this on a Sunday not a Monday. This weekend I was lucky enough to have a day free from rowing which allowed me to get all my meal prep done, and a whole lot of revision. So as promised today I am writing about some papers that I've read this week. The first major one was a cross-sectional analysis of veterinary student coping strategies and stigma in seeking psychological help. I got this from the veterinary record, I'll put link down below for anyone who wants to read the full article.
It is commonly known that veterinary students are under high academic stress, along with possible stress from relationships and financial issues. This constant stress an lead to ill mental health both at university and later on into the career. The study I read was looking into the different strategies used by veterinary students in Australia, to cope with the emotional stress, exploring into the roots of how there is a link between self-stigma and coping strategies. It was found that female students were more likely to use instrumental and emotional support to cope than the male cohort who showed a greater use of humour and self-stigma. The self-stigma part of this is the whole not seeking instrumental support, greater self-blame and gender. Improving this whole self stigma thing around mental ill health is so important to allow the veterinary profession to develop and for well-being to improve.
It was interesting to read that 27% of respondents (n=1480) to a survey of vet students in the UK in 2016 reported they suffered from depression whilst at uni, which is 10 times the national average. This didn't really surprise me because from my experience of uni so far, we have to take on so much information every single week in such the volume and depth, that it almost seems impossible to be able to learn each section and be able to recall information when it comes up in exams.
Some of the different coping strategies they expanded on were;
Emotion-focused; including seeking emotional support, accepting what has happened, positively reframing the situation, drawing on one's religious beliefs or spirituality and using humour.
Problem-focused; include planning, seeking instrumental support and actively working to improve the situation.
Dysfunctional-focused; these include denial, self-distraction, venting, self-blame, substance misuse and behavioural disengagement or giving up.
Which one do you think you are? I'm not really sure which one I am, I think it's probably a mix between planning things and giving up. I really do enjoy planning things, not sure if any of you have noticed I think it's so that I can be in control of something in my life even when my studies are going bad.
In the veterinary profession there is a lot of general stress from day to day and seeking emotional and practical support is important for copping and help seeking behaviours can been seen as a strategy to develop resilience. Accessing the proper support you need for your problems can help with long term management and not seeking this help could risk mental health issues even more. So help-seeking strategies can be viewed as a wellness behaviour not only associated with mental health.
But with this being said there is still such a stigma towards ill mental health. Once used to refer to a physical mark of disgrace, stigma is now used to refer to ‘a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something, especially when this is unfair'. On from this gender seems to play a role in self-stigma, with men much more likely to report high self-stigma, when seeking help. Men fear because of this mental health stigma the feeling of embarrassment, shame, diminished self-esteem, negative social judgement and academic reprisal. Even worse this self-stigma may impede and individuals engagement with suicide prevention and mental health awareness aids, which is a highly talked about topic in the veterinary profession. The method to the research was very in depth and I'll leave a link if you'd like to access the paper but here are the conclusions drawn from the results.
Veterinary mental health and well-being is a pressing concern. We found that female veterinary students reported more use of instrumental and emotional support as coping strategies, whereas male students reported more use of humour. Self-blame, less instrumental support and male gender were related to higher self-stigma. Improving the coping strategies of veterinary students and reducing the stigma and self-stigma surrounding mental ill health is important to improve the well-being and resilience of the veterinary profession. This information may be used for developing strategies to increase professional help-seeking in veterinary students.
For me this is so interesting because I can see in myself the struggle that veterinary students go through and I'm only 1/5th of the way through my degree. I would love to fully master my coping mechanisms but personally I'm scared that if I go and see someone then they will just tell me that I'm making it all up and being pathetic and to get on with it, and so I will carry on with what I am currently doing and I will slowly but surely aim to improve how I cope with mental health in the future. Throughout my time at university I would love to make this a more talked about topic because I believe wholeheartedly that this is vital for the profession and could really help move us all forwards onto a better place where mental health doesn't have such a stigma.
I hope that you enjoyed reading that, I was going to add another paper in however I'm going to save that for next week because it was just such a different topic. I hope you found that informative, please let me know down below what you experience with mental health stigma in the veterinary profession, whether you are a professional or a student. Oh and here is the link to the study I got all my information from https://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/early/2019/03/16/vr.105042 . I hope that you all have a wonderful week, remember to be grateful and smile because you never know it could make someones day.
It is commonly known that veterinary students are under high academic stress, along with possible stress from relationships and financial issues. This constant stress an lead to ill mental health both at university and later on into the career. The study I read was looking into the different strategies used by veterinary students in Australia, to cope with the emotional stress, exploring into the roots of how there is a link between self-stigma and coping strategies. It was found that female students were more likely to use instrumental and emotional support to cope than the male cohort who showed a greater use of humour and self-stigma. The self-stigma part of this is the whole not seeking instrumental support, greater self-blame and gender. Improving this whole self stigma thing around mental ill health is so important to allow the veterinary profession to develop and for well-being to improve.
It was interesting to read that 27% of respondents (n=1480) to a survey of vet students in the UK in 2016 reported they suffered from depression whilst at uni, which is 10 times the national average. This didn't really surprise me because from my experience of uni so far, we have to take on so much information every single week in such the volume and depth, that it almost seems impossible to be able to learn each section and be able to recall information when it comes up in exams.
Some of the different coping strategies they expanded on were;
Emotion-focused; including seeking emotional support, accepting what has happened, positively reframing the situation, drawing on one's religious beliefs or spirituality and using humour.
Problem-focused; include planning, seeking instrumental support and actively working to improve the situation.
Dysfunctional-focused; these include denial, self-distraction, venting, self-blame, substance misuse and behavioural disengagement or giving up.
Which one do you think you are? I'm not really sure which one I am, I think it's probably a mix between planning things and giving up. I really do enjoy planning things, not sure if any of you have noticed I think it's so that I can be in control of something in my life even when my studies are going bad.
In the veterinary profession there is a lot of general stress from day to day and seeking emotional and practical support is important for copping and help seeking behaviours can been seen as a strategy to develop resilience. Accessing the proper support you need for your problems can help with long term management and not seeking this help could risk mental health issues even more. So help-seeking strategies can be viewed as a wellness behaviour not only associated with mental health.
But with this being said there is still such a stigma towards ill mental health. Once used to refer to a physical mark of disgrace, stigma is now used to refer to ‘a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something, especially when this is unfair'. On from this gender seems to play a role in self-stigma, with men much more likely to report high self-stigma, when seeking help. Men fear because of this mental health stigma the feeling of embarrassment, shame, diminished self-esteem, negative social judgement and academic reprisal. Even worse this self-stigma may impede and individuals engagement with suicide prevention and mental health awareness aids, which is a highly talked about topic in the veterinary profession. The method to the research was very in depth and I'll leave a link if you'd like to access the paper but here are the conclusions drawn from the results.
Veterinary mental health and well-being is a pressing concern. We found that female veterinary students reported more use of instrumental and emotional support as coping strategies, whereas male students reported more use of humour. Self-blame, less instrumental support and male gender were related to higher self-stigma. Improving the coping strategies of veterinary students and reducing the stigma and self-stigma surrounding mental ill health is important to improve the well-being and resilience of the veterinary profession. This information may be used for developing strategies to increase professional help-seeking in veterinary students.
For me this is so interesting because I can see in myself the struggle that veterinary students go through and I'm only 1/5th of the way through my degree. I would love to fully master my coping mechanisms but personally I'm scared that if I go and see someone then they will just tell me that I'm making it all up and being pathetic and to get on with it, and so I will carry on with what I am currently doing and I will slowly but surely aim to improve how I cope with mental health in the future. Throughout my time at university I would love to make this a more talked about topic because I believe wholeheartedly that this is vital for the profession and could really help move us all forwards onto a better place where mental health doesn't have such a stigma.
I hope that you enjoyed reading that, I was going to add another paper in however I'm going to save that for next week because it was just such a different topic. I hope you found that informative, please let me know down below what you experience with mental health stigma in the veterinary profession, whether you are a professional or a student. Oh and here is the link to the study I got all my information from https://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/early/2019/03/16/vr.105042 . I hope that you all have a wonderful week, remember to be grateful and smile because you never know it could make someones day.
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