Breaking the Silence: A Mental Health Initiative to Reduce Stigma Among Medical Students

Mental health conditions are common among medical students. While stigma contributes to low rates of help seeking, little programming exists to address stigma. In 2015, the authors developed a mental health initiative (MHI) to combat stigma at the Pritzker School of Medicine featuring 3 elements: (1) Mental Health Panel, an annual first-year event where faculty/peers share mental health stories; (2) Pritzker, I Screwed Up, an annual all-school event where faculty/peers share experiences with failure; and (3) Humans of Pritzker, a social media initiative featuring students' mental health posts. Postevent surveys and the 2021-2022 MHI survey assessed student satisfaction and impact on stigma and help-seeking behaviors. Student Counseling Services utilization rates for medical and nonmedical students were compared for academic years 2014-2015 vs 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 to account for the pandemic's impact on mental health care utilization. The MHI survey response rate was 61% (261/430). Respondents were distributed across class-years. Most were female (57%, 150/261). The majority agreed they could speak about mental health without judgment from peers (78%, 203/259) and faculty (57%, 149/260). Most (62%, 161/260) utilized mental health services during medical school. Of these, 41% (66/161) agreed that MHI programming contributed to their decision to seek care. On the 2021-2022 Mental Health Panel and Pritzker, I Screwed Up evaluations, almost all agreed that faculty/peers sharing experiences destigmatized mental illness (99%, 78/79) and making mistakes (96%, 152/159). Student Counseling Services utilization increased from 8% (32/389) for 2014-2015 to 19% (75/394) for 2018-2019 and 33% (136/406) for 2020-2021 for medical students, compared with 19% (2,248/12,138) to 21% (3,024/14,293) and 22% (3,285/15,004) for nonmedical students. Faculty and peers sharing mental health stories may help reduce stigma and increase help seeking in medical students. Future work should explore the longitudinal impact of programming and disseminating similar initiatives at other institutions.