Objective: To explore signs of depression in staff medical doctors but mainly in those in postgraduate studies.
Method: From several hospitals fron Santiago-Chile, a sample of 100 was obtained, with the following structure:
1.- Staff medical doctors: 20. 2.- Postgraduate students in one of 7 specialties training programme: 44. 3.-Postgraduate students in the Pediatrics training Programme: 36. All accepted to answer the 20 questions of the Zung scale in an anonymous fashion. The maximum score attainable in the scale in 80 and usually is considered abnormal any score above 40.A comparison was performed between those with normal and abnormal score using the questions 14-17-18-19 vs. 2-4-8-13 as representatives of more and less suggestives of abnormality. Fisher-Irwin test was applied.
Results: In the whole sample, 17% showed abnormal score, being the highest, 25%, in staff doctors. In the above mentioned comparison we found p=0,01 when considering the first set of questions and p=0,53 with the second one.
This suggested the need of study different weights for different questions.
Conclusions: 1.-Evidences of depression were detected in 17% of the whole group and in 25%of staff medical doctors. 2. - There are basis to recommend perform studies on weight factors for each question in Zung scale.
Keywords: postgraduate students, depression, Zung scale |
