ArticleAnnals of medicine2023
Prevalence, characteristics and measurement of somatic symptoms related to mental health in medical students: a scoping review.
Article in Annals of medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Mediation Effect of Eudaimonic Well-Being in the Relationship Between Self-Determination and Somatic Symptoms.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- The spectrum of somatic and psychological distress: a novel cross-disciplinary analysis of medical and non-medical students in the academic landscape.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- SSD-12 somatic symptom disorder scale: replication of validation and introduction of a parent version SSD-12-P.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Predictor and subgroup analysis of somatic symptoms and emotional exhaustion among university students in Germany during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: a longitudinal analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Prevalence and symptomatology of anemia in young adults: A cross-sectional study.Northern clinics of Istanbul · 2026Article
- Autistic- and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-like traits: differential associations with burnout, depression and anxiety, and empathy among Japanese junior residents.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Identifying predictors of student depression through validated machine learning pipelines.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- The Effect of Physical Pain on Depression and Resilience: A Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Regarding: 'prevalence, characteristics and measurement of somatic symptoms related to mental health in medical students: a scoping review'.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- A scoping review of somatization: characteristics and implications among health profession students.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Exploring mental well-being among medical students in the Visegrad four: a cross-national analysis.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Smartphone dependency, digital amnesia, and somatic symptoms among nursing students: the challenge of artificial intelligence.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of Frequency-Specific Microcurrent (FSM) Therapy and Relaxation in Adults with Distress: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- When Minds Race and Bodies Ache: Investigating the Dual Burden of Generalized Anxiety and Somatic Symptoms on Nursing Students' Well-Being During Exams at Qassim University.Advances in medical education and practice · 2025Article
- Managing Stress and Somatization Symptoms Among Students in Demanding Academic Healthcare Environments.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The impact of nurses' stress situation coping on somatization: a mediated moderation model.PeerJ · 2024Observational
- Unraveling the core symptoms of mental health in senior grade three students- a network analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionSomatic symptoms related to mental health in medical students are under-researched, with nothing on the topic being published in the United States in over three decades. This scoping review is the first of its kind to explore the prevalence, type and severity of somatic symptoms induced by stress, anxiety, depression and burnout amongst medical students, with the objective of describing the significance and breadth of this issue.
methodsPRISMA-ScR guidelines were used to guide this review. A comprehensive search was performed of 22 databases, followed by bibliographic and hand searching. Inclusion criteria were published, peer-reviewed articles with a sample of medical students and at least one measure of somatic symptoms related to mental health, in English or with an English-language translation. Excluded were review, companion and editorial articles. Coding was done by an experienced coder trained in systematic review techniques. Two authors reviewed each article.
resultsTwenty-nine articles met inclusion criteria, representing 16 countries, 31 schools/teaching hospitals and 9,887 medical students. The prevalence of somatic symptoms ranged from 5.7 to 80.1%, and somatic symptoms were overwhelmingly found to be significantly correlated with mental ill-health. Somatic symptoms included back pain, neck pain, headaches, sleep disturbances and functional gastrointestinal disorders. Eleven different outcome measures were used, with varying degrees of validity and reliability, which were compared and assessed.
conclusionsSomatic symptoms appear strongly correlated with mental ill-health in medical students, and are likely highly prevalent. This review highlights the need for further research on somatic symptoms of mental ill-health in medical students, particularly in the United States, and the addition of larger, multi-institutional cohorts to expand our understanding of prevalence, incidence and inciting factors of somatic symptoms. Longitudinal studies tracking somatic symptoms' effect on career trajectory and professional burnout levels are also needed. Finally, future research should explore interventions for reducing physical symptom burden in medical students.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.