Concerns about the mental health of students, trainees and staff at universities and medical schools have been growing for many years. Recently, these have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of heightened reckoning and protests about systemic racism in the United States in 2020. To better understand the mental health of medical students and biomedical doctoral students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during this challenging period, we performed a cross-sectional study (n=957) using institutional annual survey data on measures of depression, anxiety, hazardous alcohol use, problems related to substance use, and suicidal ideation. These data were collected in 2019 and 2020, and were analyzed by type of training program, race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and survey year. Results indicated significant differences for rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, with biomedical doctoral students showing greater incidence than medical students, and historically excluded students (e.g., people of color, women, LGBQ+ trainees) showing greater incidence compared to their peers. Of note, mental health remained poor for biomedical doctoral students in 2020 and declined for those belonging to historically excluded populations. The high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation reported suggest that training environments need to be improved and support for mental health increased.
The increasing visibility of mental health challenges for academic and graduate trainee populations has led to discussion of the role higher education institutions should play to address trainee mental health, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing racial injustice. To address the growing concern about training impacts on medical and biomedical doctoral trainee mental health, a cross-sectional study (n=957) was conducted using institutional annual survey data analyzed by type of training program, race/ethnicity, and survey year on measures of depression, anxiety, hazardous alcohol use, problems related to substance use, and suicidal ideation. Results indicated significant differences for rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, with biomedical doctoral trainees showing greater incidence than medical doctoral trainees, and underrepresented minority trainees showing greater incidence than well-represented trainees. The concerningly high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among these trainee populations suggest that medical and biomedical doctoral training environments must be transformed in addition to expanding mental health support resources.
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