Mindfulness and its association with academic performance in medical students

Mindfulness is a type of awareness achieved through purposeful attention, in the present moment and without judgment, to current events at any moment. This study investigates the association between mindfulness and academic performance among final-year medical students. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 285 final-year medical students. Data were collected using a checklist of demographic characteristics, student grade point average, and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and analyzed in SPSS-24 software. The average grade point average was 16.01 ± 1.07. The mean total mindfulness scores were 125.96 ± 13.00 with a range of scores (92-172). Therefore, mindfulness was at a relatively high level. Among the mindfulness components, the highest score was in the observation dimension (3.49 ± 0.68), and the lowest was in the non-judgment dimension (3.01 ± 0.62). There was a weak and positive correlation between mindfulness and the interns' grade point average, which was statistically significant (P-value = 0.019, d = 0.12). Given the existence of this relationship, university educational officials can consider programs to strengthen the mindfulness of clinical students as one of the factors for improving academic performance.