By Kara Grant, MedPage Today, January 25, 2022
Many first-year residents felt their new depressive symptoms were getting in the way of their functionality, researchers reported.
In a cohort study of 15,566 medical interns, there was a significant increase in average depression scores relating to clinical impairment -- such as difficulty performing social, occupation, and other important tasks -- Lisa Meeks, PhD, of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, and colleagues reported in a JAMA Network Open research letter.
Measured via the self-reported Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), interns' mean depressive symptom scores were significantly higher during internship compared with their preinternship year, respectively, across all perceived impairment categories (P<0.001 for all):
- Extremely difficult perceived impairment: 14.2 vs 9.4
- Very difficult: 9.0 vs 6.3
- Somewhat difficult: 4.9 vs 3.1
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