Increasing motivation and well-being among medical students using curricular self-experience group sessions-a randomized controlled trial

Background Medical students often face increased stress, reduced well-being, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory suggests that intrinsic motivation can be increased through autonomy, relatedness and competence. Intrinsic motivation and relaxation techniques have been shown to reduce stress. Therefore, this pilot study investigates whether promoting relatedness, autonomy and competence through participation in self-experience group therapy increases intrinsic motivation and reduces stress in medical students. Methods A longitudinal randomized controlled trial was conducted with 139 medical students. The students were participants in a one-week psychiatry internship in the winter semester of 2023-4. They were randomly assigned to either a daily relaxation group or self-experience group therapy based on motivational interviewing. Data were collected from pre- and post-internship groups as well as several weeks later using the Self-Regulation Questionnaire for Learning, the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Visual Analog Scale for Stress, and the WHO-5 Scale for Well-Being. Focus group interviews were conducted with students and therapists and were thematically analyzed. The students' performance was compared and analyzed. Results The students in both groups exhibited increased autonomous regulation with respect to learning at the end of the internship (p < .001, d = 3.29) and improved well-being (p < .001, d = .275) as evaluated via repeated-measures ANOVA. Cross-sectional testing with at test revealed that participants in the self-experience group sessions presented higher levels of relatedness (p = .005, d = .505) and intrinsic motivation (p = .002, d = .542) than participants in the relaxation group. The self-experience group sessions were well accepted by the students, who preferred these sessions to the relaxation group. No differences were detected at the end of the semester. Conclusion The integration of self-experience therapy into student teaching is a suitable way of eliciting short-term feelings of relatedness and increasing students' motivation to learn while simultaneously reducing their experiences of stress over a one-week period.