Abstract
Depression among medical personnel is recognized worldwide as a serious problem, yet quantitative syntheses of prevalence studies are rare. We proceeded quantify and understand prevalence variation among physicians at the global levels. For this meta-analysis, we searched 6 databases, including: PsycINFO, Web of Science, PubMed, ProQuest using a comprehensive search strategy to identify prevalence of the physicians’ depression studies in the literature, published from inception of 1979. Studies reporting estimates of depression prevalence in physicians were included in the analyses. Studies quality was assessed with a prevalence risk of bias tool. Meta-regression was used to explore heterogeneity of the moderators we included in the analysis. Of the 3,156 studies initially identified, 33 were eligible for inclusion. These studies were geographically diverse (15 countries). The pooled prevalence rate for overall elder abuse was .243 (CI [.188; .306]; p<.001). Meta-analysis of studies that included overall abuse revealed heterogeneity. Significant associations were found between overall prevalence estimates and region, but not for sampling allocation and severity of depression. In this meta-analysis, the summary estimate of the prevalence of depression among physicians is 24.3%, ranging from 2% to 65.3 % depending on the region from the studies. Further research is needed to identify effective strategies for preventing and treating depression among physicians.
Highlights
Being a physician is often thought as one of the most rewarding, respectable and safety professions, but it is known to be one of the most stressful with high probability of long-term negative impact on the physician’s mental health and wellbeing
Depression and mental health status is a current concern in broad domains, actual research of occupational health brings evidence regarding higher prevalence of common mental disorders among physicians compared with the general population [4] and other professions [7,8]
The 33 studies selected for meta-analysis were geographically diverse and included 15 countries, clustered in 4 World Health Organization (WHO) regions: two studies as Eastern Mediterranean Region; 14 studies as European Region; 8 studies as Region of the Americas; 8 studies as Western Pacific; and one study coded as Other because Taiwan is not part of any WHO region classification
Summary
Being a physician is often thought as one of the most rewarding, respectable and safety professions, but it is known to be one of the most stressful with high probability of long-term negative impact on the physician’s mental health and wellbeing. Meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the prevalence estimate for depression among physicians and its moderator variables.
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