Emergency Medicine Residency Website Wellness Pages: A Content Analysis

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Graduate Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine Training

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic shifted residency recruitment towards virtual interviews, increasing reliance on program websites.
• Resident wellness is a critical factor for both training quality and prospective applicants' program selection.
• Transparency regarding wellness initiatives on residency websites is therefore essential for informed decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the prevalence of dedicated wellness pages on Emergency Medicine (EM) residency program websites.
• To identify and categorize the key themes discussed on existing EM residency wellness pages.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of all 278 Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) EM residency program websites from 2022.
• Independent coding of wellness statements using an inductive process, with iterative refinement to consensus and theme organization.

Main Results:

• Only 20.5% of EM residency websites featured a dedicated wellness page.
• An additional 16.2% linked to institutional wellness pages, while 60.8% mentioned wellness elsewhere on their site.
• 69 (24.8%) of websites lacked any direct mention of wellness.

Conclusions:

• The majority of EM residency programs lack dedicated wellness pages on their websites.
• Programs that do provide wellness information cover themes such as psychological well-being, work-life integration, and available resources.
• Enhancing website transparency about wellness initiatives presents an opportunity for programs to better attract applicants who prioritize these aspects.