High depression rates, suicidal ideation among medical students, shows study
An analysis of almost 200 studies involving 129,000 medical students in 47 countries have found that the prevalence of depression was 27 percent while 11 percent reported suicidal ideation during medical school. Curiously enough, just 16 percent of depressed students reportedly sought treatment. A study regarding this appeared in the December 16 issue of JAMA.
Even though studies have mentioned that medical students have high rates of depression and suicidal ideation, the prevalence estimates vary across studies. Reliable estimates are crucial for addressing the treatment and prevention measures etc. This becomes even more important what with the recent work which reveals a high prevalence of depression in resident physicians.
Stress, anxiety and competitiveness pointed out as the probable reasons
A systematic review of published studies was conducted by Douglas A Mata, M.D, M.P.H, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston and his colleagues. They identified 195 studies which met the criteria for inclusion in the analysis.
The overall pooled crude prevalence of depression or depressive symptoms was found to be 27 percent. Depressive symptom prevalence remained more or less constant throughout the period studied(1982 to 2015). In the studies which assessed depressive symptoms before and during medical education, the median rise in symptoms turned out to be 14 percent. Curiously or not, prevalence estimates didn’t differ significantly between studies of only pre-clinical students and studies of just clinical students( 23.7 as opposed to 22.4 percent).
The data for suicidal ideation was extracted from 24 cross-sectional studies conducted in 15 countries. The percentage of suicidal ideation was found to be 11 percent.
“The present analysis builds on recent work demonstrating a high prevalence of depression among resident physicians, and the concordance between the summary prevalence estimates (27.2 percent in students vs 28.8 percent in residents) suggests that depression is a problem affecting all levels of medical training. Taken together, these data suggest that depressive and suicidal symptoms in medical trainees may adversely affect the long-term health of physicians as well as the quality of care delivered in academic medical centers,” the authors of the study write.
“Possible causes of depressive and suicidal symptomatology in medical students likely include stress and anxiety secondary to the competitiveness of medical school. Restructuring medical school curricula and student evaluations might ameliorate these stresses. Future research should also determine how strongly depression in medical school predicts depression during residency and whether interventions that reduce depression in medical students carry over in their effectiveness when those students transition to residency. Furthermore, efforts are continually needed to reduce barriers to mental health services, including addressing the stigma of depression.”
“Further research is needed to identify strategies for preventing and treating these disorders in this population,” the researchers conclude.