CHICAGO – The majority of American and Canadian psychiatric residents feel stressed out–and one-quarter of those residents are contemplating a career change, a new survey suggests.
Fully 56% of the 893 psychiatric residents who responded to the online survey rated their lives as either stressed or very stressed. Nineteen percent of respondents were dissatisfied with their physical health and 14% were dissatisfied with their mental health, Dr. Paul O'Leary reported at the American Psychiatric Association's Institute on Psychiatric Services.
Only 7% of the residents categorized themselves as relaxed. One-quarter of the respondents who characterized themselves as stressed or very stressed indicated they want to switch their residency program and 22% want to change specialty, according to Dr. O'Leary of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The survey was conducted to examine resident wellness in the wake of changes to the work environment that culminated in the 80-hour work week introduced in 2003. The survey elicited responses from 17% of all North American residents in the American Psychiatric Association database, a response rate low enough to raise selection bias as a potential concern, Dr. O'Leary conceded.
Stressed residents identified time pressure, workload, and the hectic pace of training as their biggest stressors. They were twice as likely as relaxed residents to identify family and relationship issues as major stressors outside the workplace.
Many of the coping mechanisms used by stressed residents differed from those employed by relaxed residents. Stressed trainees were markedly more likely to cope through sleep, eating, isolation, blaming others, and ignoring their problems. One-quarter of stressed residents used prescription drugs to cope, a rate twice that of the relaxed residents.
Dr. O'Leary zeroed in on the longer hours worked by stressed residents: 70% worked 9 hours or more per day, compared with 19% of relaxed residents.