How to handle stress and look after your mental health

doi:10.1136/bmj.b1368

Published 27 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1368
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1368

Practice

The Competent Novice

How to handle stress and look after your mental health

Amy Iversen, clinical lecturer¹, Bruno Rushforth, general practice specialty registrar², Kirsty Forrest, consultant anaesthetist³

¹ Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London SE5 9RJ, ² Dewsbury and District Hospital, Dewsbury WF13 4HS, ³ Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds LS1 3EX

Correspondence to: A Iversen a.iversen@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Junior doctors can take action to avoid stress and depressionassociated with their workload. This article explains how, andgives advice on who to seek help from if the need arises

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Stress is common among junior doctors

A proportionof stressed doctors will develop mental health problems

Factorsthat contribute to stress can be identified and modified

Manyconfidential and free sources of help are available for doctors

Twenty years ago Firth-Cozens reported that among doctors intheir first year of graduating 50% were estimated to have emotionaldisturbance and 28% fulfilled criteria for depression.¹ Sincethen, working hours have decreased, and the way that doctorsare trained and managed has changed substantially. Despite this,the proportion of doctors experiencing psychological distresshas remained constant, at about 28%, compared with about 18%in the general working population.² ³ For junior doctors, 79%of those caught up in the recent problems of MTAS (the UK medicaltraining application service, an online system for the selectionof junior doctors) scored above the threshold for psychologicaldistress and 21% had significant distress.⁴ Psychiatric morbidityand . . . [Full text of this article]

At medicalschool
For junior doctors
Throughout doctors’ careers

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Relevant Articles

The NHS elephant in the room: John Sharkey
BMJ 2009 338: b2099. [Extract] [Full Text]

Doctors, their wellbeing, and their stress: Jenny Firth-Cozens
BMJ 2003 326: 670-671. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Doctors as patients: postal survey examining consultants and general practitioners adherence to guidelines: Malcolm Forsythe, Michael Calnan, and Barbara Wall
BMJ 1999 319: 605-608. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Sharkey, J. (2009). The NHS elephant in the room. BMJ 338: b2099-b2099 [Full text]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Physician Heal Thyself: Rahul Rao
bmj.com, 8 May 2009 [Full text]
Meditation not medication -a wonderful method to avoid stress: INDRANIL BANERJEE
bmj.com, 10 May 2009 [Full text]
Defining , measuring and managing stress.: Richard G Fiddian-Green
bmj.com, 10 May 2009 [Full text]
A view from the bottom: Chris E Nancollas
bmj.com, 11 May 2009 [Full text]
Re: Defining , measuring and managing stress.: Les O. Simpson
bmj.com, 11 May 2009 [Full text]
Time has the answer!: Nikhil C Kaushik
bmj.com, 13 May 2009 [Full text]
Peer Pressure: Christina Ryan
bmj.com, 13 May 2009 [Full text]
The NHS is the elephant in the corner: John Sharkey
bmj.com, 14 May 2009 [Full text]
Role of occupational health: John RB Cooper, et al.
bmj.com, 18 May 2009 [Full text]
Systemic , organisational and personal factors in occupational stress: Janet Thomas
bmj.com, 18 May 2009 [Full text]
The OASIS System: Can an acronym help in avoiding depression?: Digby J Quested
bmj.com, 22 May 2009 [Full text]