People in stressful jobs are more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms if they work 90 hours or more per week, a study has found.
- One in five participants trained in surgical disciplines.
- More than half of the volunteers were women.
- Fewer than one in 20 people met the criteria for moderate to severe depression at the start of the internship year.
The more you work and spend time at your workplace, where you have a stressful job, the more likely you are to be affected by depression. This was revealed by scientists from the University of Michigan in the United States. To reach this conclusion, they conducted a study published in the journal New England Journal of Medicine.
Stressful professions: more than 17,000 medical students have been followed
As part of this research, the team used advanced statistical methods to simulate a randomized clinical trial, taking into account many factors in the personal and professional lives of medical students. In total, more than 17,000 interns have been recruited. The participants were 27 years old and were followed for 11 years. They completed a questionnaire about their depressive symptoms, their working hours and their sleep.
Working a long number of hours, a factor of depression
According to the work, 46% of volunteers experienced a stressful event, such as a death or birth in their family, or a marriage during their year of internship, and 37% said they had been involved in at least one medical error. during the year.
According to the results, working 90 hours or more per week was associated with changes in depression scores. When spending too much time at work, an increase in depressive symptoms is observed and is estimated at 5.2 points. The score of people exercising their profession between 40 and 45 hours per week was 1.8 points. Thus, the authors concluded that of all the stressors affecting physicians, working long hours is an important contributor to depression.
“You can handle stress better when you have more time to recover”
“This study suggests that a reduction in the average number of hours worked would make a difference in the degree to which depressive symptoms increase in interns over time, and reduce the number of those who develop depression that is possible to diagnose. (…) You can better manage stress or frustrations related to your work when you have more time to recover”, explained Amy Bohnert, author of the research, in a statement.