Novel Content-Focussed Mentoring to Reduce Social Anxiety in Prospective Healthcare Students in a Rural Area

Gereis J, Sheahan M, Taylor O, Ingram C, Maguire R, Kellock E, Nunes D, Suttie I, Suttie C, Suttie J UNDA, Australia.

Introduction

Applying to university and healthcare careers is more challenging in rural areas where access to resources, cultural support and role models are more limited. Social-Exchange and Fit-Theory suggest decisions about career choices are improved with positive exposures.1 This has been corroborated by early
exposure to rural medicine in early education and medical training. Deterrents include high rates of social anxiety among teenagers who fear speaking out about their ambitions to study medicine for fear of social backlash.

Methods

Bushtracks is a novel program to encourage rural high school students, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous to connect with rural communities and rural medical students. A curriculum with biology questions, resuscitation training and interview practice was completed by all participants (n=28). Unstructured career advice occurred during the day with incidental social interactions. We performed a mixed methods post-intervention survey to determine student responses to the initiative.

Results

Survey respondents (88% of attendees) reported a high sense of enjoyment and ease with the content format (88%). The majority (63%) reported they would be ‘very likely’ and 37% would ‘maybe’ consider applying for healthcare careers. No attendees reported anxiety or avoidance during the event. All attendees would recommend it to others.

Discussion

Based on rates of up to 40% of high school students reporting social anxiety and avoidance, we organised a low-threat trigger orientation program that with graded exposure from didactic to interactive value-based interviews to replicate medical school entry. We surveyed students on their subjective comfort and
enjoyment of the experience and asked semi-structured questions regarding what elements of the content based interaction they felt offered the most value. Unfortunately this study is subject to selection bias since the non-respondents might be more likely to have had a negative experience of the initiative.

Conclusion

Social anxiety and avoidance is highly prevalent among rural high school students. This program which focuses on content delivery rather than direct career counselling achieved a high rate of engagement with a low rate of reported anxiety or avoidance.