An immersive acceptance and commitment therapy intervention for medical students: a single-arm pilot study

Jaffery, Zahra, Al-Helu, Noor, Sapong, Iarl, Palmer, Paula, Forty, Elizabeth and Hassoulas, Athanasios ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1029-1847 2026. An immersive acceptance and commitment therapy intervention for medical students: a single-arm pilot study. JMIR Formative Research JMIR Publications. 10.2196/preprints.101786

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Abstract

Background: The prevalence of depression is higher among medical students than in the general population and is associated with impaired well-being, academic functioning, and later professional burnout. This highlights the need for scalable psychological interventions within medical education. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which targets psychological flexibility, may be particularly well suited to high-pressure training environments, yet evidence for brief and immersive ACT formats remains limited. Objective: This study evaluated the feasibility and preliminary psychological impact of a single-session immersive ACT intervention delivered to undergraduate medical students. Methods: Using a prospective single-arm pre–post design, 25 students attended 60-minute ACT-based sessions delivered in a 360-degree immersive learning environment. Depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) were the primary outcome, with anxiety (GAD-7) and obsessive–compulsive symptoms (OCI-R) as secondary outcomes. Results: The intervention was associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptom severity, particularly among participants with mild to moderate baseline depression. No significant changes were observed in overall anxiety or obsessive–compulsive symptom severity, although exploratory analyses suggested differential changes across specific obsessive–compulsive symptom dimensions by gender and year of study. Conclusions: These findings provide preliminary support for the feasibility and potential utility of a brief, in-person immersive ACT intervention in reducing depressive symptoms among subclinical samples. Further controlled research with larger samples and longitudinal follow-up is warranted.

Item Type:	Working paper
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Submitted
Schools:	Schools > Medicine
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Publisher:	JMIR Publications
Last Modified:	10 Jun 2026 09:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187463

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