Scientific News and Reading Suggestion #28

On March 2019, Lancet Psychiatry published the following article: “Interventions to reduce symptoms of common mental disorders and suicidal ideation in physicians: a systematic review and meta-analysis” (Petrie, K). It deals with a current topic, which is the increased prevalence of common mental disorders (depression, anxiety) and suicide among physicians. The authors identified 2992 articles, of which 8 were included in the systematic review and 7 in the meta-analysis. The results suggest that “physician-directed interventions are associated with small reductions in symptoms of common mental health disorders among physicians” and that “modification of the work environment is urgently needed”.

We proposed the topic of physician and mental health in other reading suggestions in the past year. In September on Jama Psychiatry it was published the article “A Physician’s Suffering – Facing Depression as a Trainee”, which focused on the impact that a physician suicide may have on colleagues; in May 2018 on BMJ it was published the free meta-analysis and systematic review “Psychosocial job stressors and suicidality: a meta-analysis and systematic review”.

As stressed in our previous suggestions, the medical profession is one of the occupations with the highest risk of death by suicide (one physician is estimated to die by suicide each day in the USA) and this is often an “uncomfortable” topic for discussion.

Also our Secretary C. Gramaglia and our member P. Zeppegno published on April 2018 an Opinion on Frontiers in Psychology, edited by our Co-Chair J. L. Castroman titled “Medical Students and Suicide Prevention: Training, Education, and Personal Risks”. The article stresses the importance of a specific training focusing on the risk of depression and suicide risk among medical students and practitioners. The article is open access HERE.

See our previous reading suggestions to know more:

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