More than one in four doctors in the early stages of their careers have signs of depression, said a study.
The study claimed the grueling years of training for a medical job are to blame.
That’s bad news not just for the young doctors themselves, but also for the patients they care for as depressed doctors are more likely to make mistakes or give worse care, Xinhua cited the study as saying.
The findings, published in the US journal JAMA on Tuesday, came from an investigation of 50 years’ studies that looked for depression symptoms in more than 17,500 resident physicians, also known as doctors in training.
By collecting and combining data from 54 studies done around the world between 1963 and 2015, researchers from the Harvard University and the University of Michigan concluded that 28.8 percent of physicians in training have signs of depression.
“These findings highlight an important issue in graduate medical education,” said corresponding author Douglas Mata, a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School and resident physician in Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“The prevalence of depression is much higher than in the general population.”
The study also showed a small but significant increase in the rate of depression over the past five decades.
The researchers noted that depression among residents also affects patients, as previous research has established links between physician depression and lower quality care.
In an accompanying editorial, Thomas Schwenk of the University Of Nevada School Of Medicine said medical training system may need “more fundamental change,” Schwenk said.
Originally Published In The Times Of India.
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