• DOI:10.1136/bmj.309.6964.1261
• Corpus ID: 23473088

Stress, anxiety, and depression in hospital consultants, general practitioners, and senior health service managers

@article{Caplan1994StressAA,
  title={Stress, anxiety, and depression in hospital consultants, general practitioners, and senior health service managers},
  author={Richard Caplan},
  journal={BMJ},
  year={1994},
  volume={309},
  pages={1261 - 1263}
}

• R. Caplan
• Published 12 November 1994
• Psychology, Medicine
• BMJ

Abstract Objective: To study stress anxiety, and depression in a group of senior health service staff. Design: Postsal survey. Subjects: 81 hospital consultants, 322 general practitioners, and 121 senior hospital managers (total 524). Main outcome measures: Scores on the general health questionnaire and the hospital anxiety and depression scale. Results: Sixty five (80%) consultants, 257 (80%) general practitioners, and 67 (56%) managers replied. Of all 389 subjects, 183 (47%) scored positively on the general health questionnaire, indicating high levels of stress. From scores on the hospital anxiety and depression scale only 178 (46%) would be regarded as free from anxiety, with 100 (25%) scoring as borderline cases and 111 (29%) likely to be experiencing clinically measurable symptoms. The findigns for depression were also of some concern, especially for general practitioners, with 69 (27%) scoring as borderline or likely to be depressed. General practitioners were more likely to be depressed than managers (69 (27%) v 4 (6%) scored >=8 on hospital anxiety and depression sacle-D; P=0.004) with no sgnificant difference between general practitioners and consultants. General practitioners were significantly more likely to show suicidal thanking than were consultants (36 (14%) v 3 (5%); P=0.04) but not managers (9 (13%)). No significant differnce could be found between the three groups on any other measure. Conclusions: the levels of stress, anxiety, and depressionin senior doctors and managers in the NHS seem to be high and perhaps higher than expected.