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Depressive symptoms in junior doctors: a follow-up study on work-related determinants

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Abstract

Purpose

The study investigates the long-term effects of accumulated working conditions on depressive symptoms in junior doctors. Drawing on the Job Demand-Control-Support model, this study aims to identify personal and job-related determinants for self-reported depression in junior doctors—a professional group that is vulnerable to depression.

Methods

We conducted a prospective cohort study with measures of work characteristics and depressive symptoms over three time-points among hospital doctors during postgraduate specialty training in Germany. Participants were 415 junior doctors with full-time contract (47.5% women; mean age, 30.5 years). The outcome was depressive symptoms assessed with the Spielberger State-Depression Scale. Odds ratios (OR) were computed to analyse the cumulative effect of initial depressive symptoms scores, demographic variables, and working characteristics across T1 and T2 on subsequent depressive symptoms at T3.

Results

The percentage of junior doctors reporting depressive symptoms scores above a critical value varied between 12.0% at T1, 10.4% at T2, and 13.3% at T3; N = 34 doctors (8.19%) were classified as incident cases during the observation period. Elevated depressive symptoms at T3 were positively predicted by depressive symptoms scores across T1 and T2 (OR: 1.37; 95% confidence interval: 1.25–1.50) and negatively by professional tenure (0.54; 0.31–0.96), free weekends (0.52; 0.28–0.97), and job autonomy (0.35; 0.18–0.65).

Conclusions

After controlling for demographic and working time influences, findings suggest that junior doctors’ perceived job autonomy is negatively associated with future depressive symptoms. Enhancing job control emerges as a promising strategy to lower the risk of depression during first years of professional practice.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded in part by the German Medical Association and supported by the Bavarian Chamber of Doctors, Marburger Bund, and Munich Center of Health Sciences. These sponsors had no influence on the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; on the writing of the report; and on the decision to submit the paper for publication. All authors are independent from the funders and supporters.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute and Outpatient Clinic for Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Ziemssenstr. 1, 80336, Munich, Germany

    Matthias Weigl, Raluca Petru & Jürgen Glaser

  2. Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, SAR, China

    Severin Hornung

  3. Institute for Occupational, and Social Medicine, Universitätsklinikum, Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Peter Angerer

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  1. Matthias Weigl
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  2. Severin Hornung
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  4. Jürgen Glaser
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  5. Peter Angerer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthias Weigl.

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Ethics approval

The Committee on Ethics of Human Research of the Medical Faculty, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, gave ethical approval for the study (No. 016/04).

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Weigl, M., Hornung, S., Petru, R. et al. Depressive symptoms in junior doctors: a follow-up study on work-related determinants. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 85, 559–570 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-011-0706-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-011-0706-8

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