Psychological morbidity in medical students after entering into clinical training

Psychological morbidity is emerging as an important issue for medical students after entering clinical training due to extensive working hours. Students find themselves unable to balance competing demands on their time and cannot allocate appropriate time to family, spouses and even to themselves; this leads to complaints about exhaustion and lack of efficiency in their profession.Objective:To assess Psychological morbidity in interns, medical officers and residentsMethods: A cross sectional study was conducted. A google form was designed with questions adopting from the three scales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS). Question from all three categories of MBI-GS such as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment were considered. The form was distributed via email and Whatsapp to 87 house officers, medical officers and residents of six public healthcare facilities in Lahore. Responses were captured from 73 participants who completed the General Health questionnaire. Seven of these forms were filled by nurses, so in the present study only the response of those 66 participants who conformed to the study cross-section were considered. The results were analyzed using SPSS version 22 for descriptive statistics and chi-square association.Results:A significant association was found between long working hours and emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment questions in particular. The findings suggests long working hours ruin the mental health of medical professionals, which ultimately produce psychological health impacts. Conclusions: It was concluded that these factors should be considered to reduce psychological morbidity in health professionals.