Article Text
PDF
Abstract
Objectives This cross-sectional study was designed to measure burnout and its impact on risk of depression in a medical student population, comparing the preclinical and clinical years.
Design We conducted a survey of 269 medical school students in both preclinical and clinical years at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, using the Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen (BDI-FS), the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey and items assessing willingness to use mental health services. Burnout scores were calibrated to probability of depression caseness and classified as low risk (<25%), intermediate (25%–50%) and high risk (>50%) of depression.
Results There was a 39% (95% CI 33% to 45%) prevalence of depressive caseness based on a score of ≥6 on the BDI-FS. Prevalence did not vary significantly between clinical and preclinical years. The rate of burnout varied significantly between years (p=0.032), with 35% in the high-burnout category in clinical years compared with 26% in preclinical years. Those in the low burnout category had a 13% overall prevalence of depressive symptoms, those in the intermediate category had a 38% prevalence and those in the high category had a 66% prevalence of depressive symptoms. Increasing emotional exhaustion (OR for one—tertile increase in score 2.0, p=0.011) and decreasing academic efficacy (OR 2.1, p=0.007) increased the odds of being unwilling to seek help for mental health problems (11%).
Conclusion While previous studies have reported significant levels of burnout and depression, our method of calibrating burnout against depression allows burnout scores to be interpreted in terms of their impact on mental health. The high prevalences, in line with previous research, point to an urgent need to rethink the psychological pressures of health professions education.
- medical students
- depression
- burnout
- mental health
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors OF conceived the study, was a member of the group that designed the protocol and managed participant recruitment. She was responsible for the drafting of the paper and had input into finalising the paper. RB was a member of the design group and had input into the content of the paper. RMC was a member of the design group, carried out the statistical analysis and designed the tables and figures, and had significant input into the writing and finalising of the paper. AMG was involved in developing the study, protocol design and had extensive input into critically revising the content and formatting of the paper. All of the above authors have given final approval of this version.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Ethics approval The study was approved by the Research and Ethics Committee in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (REC1367).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Due to the sensitive nature of the data collected in this study, no data are currently available as this may result in compromising participant anonymity.
Patient consent for publication Not required.