Freizeitverhalten von Medizinstudierenden: Anker für Selbstfürsorge und Ausgangspunkt für Strategien gegen Ärztemangel?

Background: Leisure time is relevant for physicians in career planning. It is important for life planning and related to mental health. A positive leisure behaviour strengthens resilience which counteracts burn-out and depression. It influences how long a physician can work in their profession. However, there is hardly any information on how medical students spend their free time and how it influences their choice to work in rural areas. Methods: Based on a literature search and the authors’ previous experiences, a questionnaire was developed. It was electronically sent to active medical students in Germany from 11/2020 until 3/2021. In addition to descriptive analyses, specific aspects were assessed via binary regression analysis to include the location of their future planned practice. Statistics were performed in SPSS 27.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: A total of 1553 medical students (61% female, mean age 24 years, standard deviation [SD] 4.1; mean number of semesters 6.4, SD 3.2) from 23 departments of medicine from German universities participated. In all, 21.2% (n = 331) could imagine working in rural areas. Eating in restaurants, going to the gym and meeting friends were listed more often than going to the movies, theatre or opera. Time invested in leisure time was high, and highest in meeting friends. The probability to work and settle in a rural area was associated with fewer restaurant visits and going to the movies less often (odds ratio [OR] 0.78, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.65–0.94 and OR 0.69, 95% CI 0.55–0.86, respectively). Conclusions: These results provide important information for the recruitment of young physicians in nonurban regions and can contribute to protection of mental wellbeing. To present leisure activities as a strategy to combat the shortage of physicians in “rural” regions might be overestimated as a decision-making factor.