Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Anestezi Dergisi, cilt.11, sa.1, ss.34-39, 2003 (Scopus)
Depression and anxiety in anesthesiologists predispose to occupational hazards of high suicide rates, drug addiction and early retirement besides placing the patients at risk. In this study, we investigated depression and anxiety in anesthesiologists and compared anesthesiologists with the other physicians. Twenty-three volunteer anesthesiologists and 23 sex, academic status matched volunteer physicians from other departments of the same hospital were interviewed according to structured guidelines for Hamilton Depression Scale (17 item) and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (14 item). The two groups were similar regarding age. The medians of the total depression scores of the anesthesiologists and the control groups were 9 and 7 respectively (p>0.05). The depression scores of the anesthesiologists ranged between 2 and 31 whereas the depression scores of the control group ranged between 0-39. The median anxiety scores were 8 (range between 0-42) in anesthesiologists and 10 (range between 0-39) in the control group physicians (p>0.05). This study demonstrates that anesthesiologists as well as the control group appear to have comparable degrees of depressive and anxious symptomatology requiring attention. Monitoring, detecting and treating depression and anxiety in physicians before they start self-medication or feel unable to cope with the demands of their profession or before the patients are harmed is necessary.