Associate Librarian Tufts University Boston, Massachusetts
Bibliotherapy, loosely defined as reading for therapeutic effect, has its modern roots in the Library War Service of the First World War. In collaboration with physicians, librarians “prescribed” books to soldiers recovering from illness or injury, in efforts to boost the spirits and bolster the mental health of invalids in military hospitals. In the 21st century, bibliotherapy has been deployed in clinical settings and in a public library-led community self-help context. Particularly popular in the UK, these bibliotherapeutic interventions often take the form of a book group or community discussion of a traditional self-help text. Medical students were determined to be an ideal population to examine applicability of bibliotherapy in an academic setting. Recent studies indicate a high prevalence of “high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and burnout” among medical students, as well as a greater likelihood of depression and fatigue as compared to other US college graduates aged 22-32. The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced further disruptions in personal and academic life, with greater than 40% of respondents to a recent survey indicating elevated adverse mental health conditions.
Cognition researchers theorize that consumption of tragic/horror narratives enable readers to mentally prepare for challenging situations, a concept seemingly supported by the 2020 reappearance of pandemic novels such as Stephen King’s The Stand and Albert Camus’ La Peste, on best-seller lists, and the spring 2020 appearance of Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film Contagion at the top of Netflix’s most-streamed list. Building on this concept, this study aims to determine if bibliotherapy, in the form of short excerpts of fiction and nonfiction related to plagues and pandemics, can serve as an effective intervention to improve perceptions of stress and anxiety among first year medical students. Due to severe demands on the time and attention of medical students, as well as the physical distancing required due to COVID-19, this intervention will replace the conventional self-help book with short readings (reading time ranging from 11 to 32 minutes) and an independent, self-directed structure. Due to the limited number of data points that can be gathered during an academic semester, the study is not expected to yield statistically significant results but will serve as a model for future research and potential wellness programming. As the study is still in progress, this poster reports trends unfolding in real time, not a complete analysis of results.
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