An exploration of perceptions of flourishing and social determinants of health among medical, physician assistant, and nurse practitioner students: A mixed methods study

Stephanie Neary, Benjamin Doolittle, Martina Mueller and Michelle Nichols

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to describe individual perceptions of flourishing among medical (MD), physician assistant (PA), and nurse practitioner (NP) students and the relationship between these perceptions and social determinants of health (SDOH). MD, PA, and NP students from two universities were recruited to participate in this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study. The quantitative phase took place between August and October 2023, and findings were used to purposively recruit participants for interviews that were conducted in January and February 2024. The survey included the WellRx and the Secure Flourish Index (SFI); participants applied a percentage weight (0–100%) to each of the six SFI domains of flourishing based on their perceived relative importance to their individual flourishing. Survey participants were stratified into three SDOH risk levels based on WellRx score; descriptive statistics and ANOVA testing were performed (alpha = 0.05). Interviews explored definitions of flourishing, perceptions of flourishing domains, and how SDOH needs relate to flourishing. A total of 280 of 1820 eligible students (15.4%) completed the survey, and 34 students across all three established SDOH risk groups were interviewed. Results demonstrated a significant relationship between SDOH factors and flourishing perceptions. Low-risk group students had an average SFI score that was over 15.0 points greater than those in the high-risk group (M88.0(SD ± 14.4) versus M72.7(SD ± 13.5); p

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0343630 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 43630&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0343630

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0343630

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().