Narratives of Mental Illness and Well-being: A 6-Week Course Aiming to Improve Medical Student Empathy and Resilience Through the Creative Arts

Narratives of mental illness and well-being are difficult to communicate in medical education. The arts convey these narratives and may strengthen medical student capabilities.

This study evaluated the efficacy of a 2021 6-week seminar-style course for medical students focused on five mental states through the lens of visual arts, film, and literature to impact student capabilities. Pre- and post-course administration of standardized rating scales, including the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Medical Students (JSE-S), the Groningen Reflection Ability Scale (GRAS), and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), measured course impact on medical student empathy, reflective functioning, and resiliency, respectively. Administration of these scales on a matched control group of students not enrolled in the course served for comparison.

Pre- and post-course survey data demonstrates that the course improves at levels of statistical significance medical students’ empathy (JSE-S score 77.50 SD = 15.76 improving to 93.80 SD 20.92, p = 0.0068, t = 4.19, df = 4) and resilience (CD-RISC score 65.83 SD = 14.36 improving to 78.60 SD = 10.92, p = 0.0137, t = 4.19, df = 4), but not reflective functioning (GRAS score 91 SD = 9.14 improving to 95.20 SD = 10.06, p = 0.1444, t = 1.81, df = 4). The control group showed no statistically significant differences pre- and post-course.

Limitations notwithstanding, this study suggests that the analysis of film, literature, and visual art may improve medical students’ empathy and resilience. Future studies may explore reproducibility among larger sample sizes at differing institutions and curricula as well as downstream effects on patient care and well-being.