Helping others drives satisfaction, grades drive stress among Lithuanian medical students

Most medical students in Lithuania say they are happy with their choice to study medicine, but they also rate the workload as demanding, according to a cross-sectional survey published in BMC Medical Education. Of 864 students who completed the anonymous online questionnaire, 60.1 percent reported being happy and satisfied with studying medicine. Mean perceived difficulty of the studies was 7.32 on a 10-point scale, while mean satisfaction was 6.09.

The survey was distributed by university email to students in all six study years at Vilnius University and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, and was available in both Lithuanian and English. The self-developed questionnaire covered demographics, motivations and concerns related to studying medicine rated on 5-point scales, single-item measures of perceived study difficulty and satisfaction on 10-point scales, family medical background, and the age at which students decided to pursue medicine. The response rate was approximately 9 percent, and participants had a mean age of 21.97 years, with 78.3 percent female.

Researchers led by Sigita Lesinskienė examined group differences using independent-samples t-tests with Cohen’s d effect sizes, and assessed associations among motivations, concerns and the two outcomes with Pearson correlations. The analysis was exploratory and relied on the self-developed instrument rather than validated measures, a limitation the authors themselves highlight.

Several patterns emerged across student groups. Female students reported somewhat higher perceived difficulty than male students, although satisfaction did not differ by gender. Satisfaction was lower among students in years 4 to 6 than among those in years 1 to 3, suggesting that experiences of the programme change as training progresses. International students reported lower perceived difficulty and higher satisfaction than their Lithuanian peers.

When it came to motivations, the desire to help others received the highest score of any motivation item and showed a modest positive correlation with satisfaction. This points to prosocial and intrinsic drives as the factors most closely tied to how students feel about their studies, although the correlation was described as modest and most other associations in the analysis were weak.

On the concern side, worry about grades scored highest among all concern items and showed the strongest positive correlation with perceived study difficulty. In other words, students who were most anxious about academic performance tended to rate their studies as harder. The authors conclude that concerns about academic performance were associated with greater perceived difficulty, while intrinsic and prosocial motivations, especially the desire to help others, were associated with higher satisfaction.

The study was framed around specialty choice and educational experiences, examining medical education from the student perspective by describing motivations, concerns, perceived difficulty and satisfaction across Lithuania’s medical schools. Understanding these perspectives, the authors argue, is important for improving medical education and student well-being.

Because the data are cross-sectional, the findings show associations at a single point in time and cannot establish causal relationships between motivations, concerns and outcomes. The low response rate of roughly 9 percent also raises the possibility that respondents differ from non-respondents, and the questionnaire was not validated. The authors describe their results as exploratory and say the differences by study year and between domestic and international students suggest that medical education and support strategies should be tailored to diverse student groups and training stages, while highlighting areas for future research using validated measures and more advanced analytical designs.

For medical educators, the survey offers a snapshot of how students at Lithuania’s two medical schools experience their training: generally satisfied, notably challenged by workload, and most content when driven by the wish to help others rather than by anxiety over grades. The article was published as an open-access research paper on 14 September 2026.

Subject of Research: Motivations, concerns, perceived study difficulty and satisfaction among medical students in Lithuania

Article Title: Specialty choice and educational experiences among medical students in Lithuania: a cross-sectional study

Article References: Lesinskienė, S., Adomaitienė, V., Montvidas, J., Basevičiūtė, M., Šambaras, R., & Pociūtė, K. (2026). Specialty choice and educational experiences among medical students in Lithuania: a cross-sectional study. BMC Medical Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-026-10362-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-026-10362-z

Keywords: medical education, medical students, Lithuania, cross-sectional study, satisfaction, study difficulty, specialty choice, student motivation, survey, Vilnius University, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, student well-being