Mental health status of Chinese physicians working in intensive care unit

Wenjin Chen; Wei He; Liangnan Zeng; Xiaopeng Li; Ruichen Gong; Tangming Peng; Xiaomeng Wang; Reng Ren; Di Zhao

doi:10.1016/j.jcrc.2020.11.005

Mental health status of Chinese physicians working in intensive care unit

J Crit Care. 2021 Feb:61:227-232. doi: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2020.11.005. Epub 2020 Nov 13.

Authors

Wenjin Chen¹, Wei He², Liangnan Zeng³, Xiaopeng Li⁴, Ruichen Gong⁵, Tangming Peng³, Xiaomeng Wang⁶, Reng Ren⁷, Di Zhao⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
² Department of Critical Care Medicine, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Neurosurgery, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China.
⁴ Department of Intensive Care Unit, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, China.
⁵ Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Kaohsiung Medical University, Gaoxiong, Taiwan Province, China.
⁶ Emergency Intensive Care Unit, Xuzhou Central Hospital, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China.
⁷ Neurocritical Care Unit, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
⁸ Department of Neurosurgery, The First Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China. Electronic address: 179381749@qq.com.

PMID: 33227678
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2020.11.005

Abstract

Purpose: Physicians working in intensive care unit (ICU) are prone to suffer from mental health problems, but there are still very limited data of mental health status of ICU physicians in China. Therefore, this study was to investigate their psychological status.

Materials and methods: ICU physicians were contacted electronically and asked to complete the Symptom Check-list 90 (SCL-90) for Chinese from December 13 to December 14 in 2018. A total of 1749 valid questionnaires were collected. Fifteen potential relevant factors that could affect the mental health status of ICU physicians were also analyzed by multivariate logistic regression.

Results: The total mean score of SCL-90 for surveyed subjects was 175.49 ± 65.79. Near half of the respondents were identified with psychological symptoms. The pooled estimates of all the nine factors, including somatization, obsession-compulsion, interpersonal-sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, and paranoid ideation among ICU physicians, were significantly higher than those in the general population (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that education, title, working hours per week, frequency of night shift were risk factors for psychological symptoms.

Conclusions: The situation of psychological health of ICU physicians in China is worrying, and it is urgent to take some effective measures to improve their mental health.

Keywords: Intensive care unit; Mental health; Physicians; Symptom checklist-90 (SCL-90).

MeSH terms

China / epidemiology
Health Status
Humans
Intensive Care Units
Mental Health*
Physicians*
Surveys and Questionnaires