Common mental health problems in medical students and junior doctors - an overview of systematic reviews.

Abstract

Background: Common mental health problems (CMHP) are prevalent among junior doctors and medical students, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought challenging situations with education disruptions, early graduations, and front-line work. CMHPs can have detrimental consequences on clinical safety and healthcare colleagues; thus, it is vital to assess the overall prevalence and available interventions to provide institutional-level support.

Aims: This overview summarises the prevalence of CMHPs from existing published systematic reviews and informs public health prevention and early intervention practice.

Methods: Four electronic databases were searched from 2012 to identify systematic reviews on the prevalence of CMHPs and/or interventions to tackle them.

Results: Thirty-six reviews were included: 25 assessing prevalence and 11 assessing interventions. Across systematic reviews, the prevalence of anxiety ranged from 7.04 to 88.30%, burnout from 7.0 to 86.0%, depression from 11.0 to 66.5%, stress from 29.6 to 49.9%, suicidal ideation from 3.0 to 53.9% and one obsessive-compulsive disorder review reported a prevalence of 3.8%. Mindfulness-based interventions were included in all reviews, with mixed findings for each CMHP.

Conclusions: The prevalence of CMHPs is high among junior doctors and medical students, with anxiety remaining relatively stable and depression slightly increasing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research on mindfulness-based interventions is required for a resilient and healthy future workforce.

Prisma/prospero: the researchers have followed PRISMA guidance. This overview was not registered with PROSPERO as it was conducted as part of an MSc research project.