Systematic Review of Depression, Anxiety, and Other Indicators of Psychological Distress Among U.S. and Canadian Medical Students

Abstract

Medical school is a time of significant psychological distress for physicians-in-training. Currently available information is insufficient to draw firm conclusions on the causes and consequences of student distress. Large, prospective, multicenter studies are needed to identify personal and training-related features that influence depression, anxiety, and burnout among students and explore relationships between distress and competency.

Evaluation of Nutritional Status of Cancer Patients during Treatment by Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment: a Hospital-Based Study

“…The problems most frequently endorsed by patients as contributing to psychological distress was depression (73.88%) and the observation was found to be in correlation with other studies (Dyrbye et al, 2006;Ma et al, 2013).…”

The prevalence of burnout and depression in medical doctors working in the Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality community healthcare clinics and district hospitals of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape: a cross-sectional study

“…6,12,[23][24][25][26][27][28] Burnout has also been associated with absent days from work, the inability to stay at one workplace, decreased job satisfaction and importantly, suboptimal patient care. 5,6,9,18,25,27 Working in the district and community health services is a challenging task, and these settings provide a possible breeding ground for burnout and depression in medical doctors. 23 This study aimed to define the magnitude of the problem in order to motivate the development of an action plan that is within the reach of doctors who work in these settings.…”

“…6,7 Studies carried out internationally have documented that between 22% and 60% of doctors reported experiencing burnout. [8][9][10][11][12] Locally conducted studies have been small in size, and have used a wide variety of measuring instruments, limiting the extrapolation of findings and comparisons across studies. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] A national survey on randomly selected South African medical practitioners (n = 402 doctors) conducted in 2003, documented high levels of burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation).…”

In their own words: stressors facing medical students in the millennial generation

“…Anxiety and depression have been linked to medical students’ vulnerability to stress [16], and higher levels of psychological distress have been linked to decreases in empathy [17], serious thoughts about dropping out of medical school [5], suicidal ideation [5,10], and poor academic performance [18–20]. Previous research has explored student vulnerability to stress [4,21,22], and several studies have documented major stressors for medical students, including academics [15,18], lack of balance [23], relationships [18], poor student guidance/support [23], volume of information [18,23], finances [23], uncertainty of the future [15], lack of time to oneself [18], time and responsibility [23], and the need to succeed [18]. In addition, a recent review described six major themes associated with student distress: adjustment, ethical concerns, exposure to patient death and suffering, student mistreatment, personal life events, and educational debt [24].…”