Canadian Physicians’ Attitudes towards Accessing Mental Health Resources

Abstract

Despite their rigorous training, studies have shown that physicians experience higher rates of mental illness, substance abuse, and suicide compared to the general population. An online questionnaire was sent to a random sample of physicians across Canada to assess physicians' knowledge of the incidence of mental illness among physicians and their attitudes towards disclosure and treatment in a hypothetical situation where one developed a mental illness. We received 139 responses reflecting mostly primary care physicians and nonsurgical specialists. The majority of respondents underestimated the incidence of mental illness in physicians. The most important factors influencing respondent's will to disclose their illness included career implications, professional integrity, and social stigma. Preference for selecting mental health treatment services, as either outpatients or inpatients, was mostly influenced by quality of care and confidentiality, with lower importance of convenience and social stigma. Results from this study suggest that the attitudes of physicians towards becoming mentally ill are complex and may be affected by the individual's previous diagnosis of mental illness and the presence of a family member with a history of mental illness. Other factors include the individual's medical specialty and level of experience. As mental illness is common among physicians, one must be conscious of these when offering treatment options.

Physician Death by Suicide: Problems Seeking Stakeholder Solutions

“…We have operationalized, and complied with others regarding the policing the profession. The time is ripe to balance the needs and interests of physicians in high quality confidential treatment [20,62,63] with those of public safety, and to preserve the confidentiality of proceedings against physicians until such time as there is a finding of incompetence requiring disclosure to protect the public. In the United States, the Federation of State Medical Boards, Federation of State Physician Health Programs, and physician advocacy groups have critical roles to play in improving physician health and decreasing physician death by suicide.…”

“…One half of all students experience burnout, and a similar number of practicing physicians experience feelings of exhaustion, loss of enthusiasm, cynicism and decreased personal accomplishment [17,18]. Students' anxiety and depression also may develop during this time of training, particularly as they transition from classroom education to the clinical years [19], within a society that fosters the erroneous belief among physicians that they are invincible or somehow invulnerable to illness [20].…”

Programs and Resources to Alleviate Concerns with Mental Health Disclosures on Physician Licensing Applications

“…11 A study to identify factors preventing Canadian physicians (mostly primary care physicians and nonsurgical specialists) from accessing mental health services showed that the most important factors influencing a physician's decision to disclose their illness included career implications, professional integrity and social stigma. 24 An anonymous, UK-wide online survey of physicians with and without a history of mental illness investigated physician attitudes about disclosing mental illness. This study showed that trainees and younger physicians were less likely to disclose mental ill health than general practitioners and consultants due to concerns about labeling, confidentiality, and not understanding available support structures.…”

An Incipient Fuzzy Logic-Based Analysis of the Medical Specialty Influence on the Perception About Mental Patients

“…Some of them have been focussed in rating attitudes towards mental illness at the sociallevel on general populations/communities by simply analyzing the effect of sex, age, country, and so on (see, for instance, [10,20,21,27,37]). Other studies have concerned attitudes of medical/health care students ('tommorrow's' doctors) and non-psychiatric physicians (see, for instance, [1,2,3,8,9,12,13,15,16,21,22,33,34,35,40,42,46]) and some few are devoted to compare attitudes of psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and relatives of mental patients in contrast to the general population (see, for instance, [39]). Also some others, like [38], deal with a comparative analysis of beliefs and attitudes among different countries.…”

“…This paper aims to perform a comparison of attitudes towards mental illness of three groups of nonpsychiatric physicians (more concretely, primary care doctors, neurologists and internists). Although a few attempts to such a comparative analysis can be found in the literature (see [4,16,30,36]), and the need for eliminating the stigmatization and discrimination within the medical profession has been often claimed (see [28]), the topic has not yet received a deep research attention.…”