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Experience and Well-being of Trainees in a Rural Mental Health Trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2023

Kate Huntington
Affiliation:
University of Lincoln, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Beena Rajkumar
Affiliation:
Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Elena Titova-Chaudhry*
Affiliation:
Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Lincoln, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

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Aims

Trainee doctors may find it difficult to express their thoughts and feelings concerning their workplace experience. It is important to gain feedback on their experiences allowing potential issues to be addressed and rectified. Identifying and managing concerns at an early stage with the provision of support may have a positive impact on trainee well-being and workforce retention in the future. This project aims to survey trainee doctors working in a rural mental health trust (Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust - LPFT) on aspects relating to their experience, well-being and effect of rurality. This may allow greater insight into issues affecting trainees and allow improvements to be made.

Methods

An electronic survey, created on the website SurveyMonkey, was distributed to 43 trainee doctors within the LPFT. This sample represented all the trainees on placements in Lincolnshire.

Results

Twenty-three out of forty-three trainee doctors (53.49%) submitted responses. Analysis of responses showed some common themes of trainees reporting on supportive workplace supervisors and good relationships with staff in general. Other key findings highlighted those living a greater distance from their workplace found longer commutes difficult, especially if there was reliance on public transport. This had a significant impact on stress levels and well-being. Some trainees reported feelings of loneliness, conversely, other trainees felt fulfilled and settled in their current training programme.

Conclusion

This survey identified both positive and negative factors affecting the experience and well-being of trainees. Despite some long commutes, isolation from family and friends and other stressors (exams, fuel costs), positive factors were recognised. This included good supervisor support and relationships. Overall, 78.26% of trainees reported they felt the benefits of their training in the LPFT outweighed the drawbacks. However, it is important to recognise these conclusions are drawn from trainees responding to the survey and are not necessarily fully representative of all trainees’ perspectives.

Type
Education and Training
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This does not need to be placed under each abstract, just each page is fine.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Footnotes

Abstracts were reviewed by the RCPsych Academic Faculty rather than by the standard BJPsych Open peer review process and should not be quoted as peer-reviewed by BJPsych Open in any subsequent publication.

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