An exploration into physiological and self-report measures of stress in pre-registration doctors at the beginning and end of a clinical rotation

Stress : the International Journal on the Biology of Stress
Heather BrantK Vedhara

Abstract

The first year practising medicine, pre-registration, is considered to be a stressful time for junior doctors. The aims of this study were to explore how levels of psychological distress were affected by changes in the working environment and to examine these effects across subjective (i.e. self-report) and objective (i.e. stress hormone cortisol) indices of psychological distress. A cohort of 36 pre-registration house officers (males = 15) completed a battery of psychosocial measures and collected salivary samples for the measurement of diurnal cortisol at the beginning and end of a 3-4-month clinical rotation with the assumption that the end of a rotation would be less stressful than the beginning. Results from the self-report measures remained constant over the two-time points suggesting no perceived change in emotional well-being on a subjective level. However, there is some evidence of neuro-endocrine changes across the two time points suggestive of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation. In particular, there was a significant difference between the cortisol awakening rise with the greatest rise seen at the beginning of a rotation. In addition, the daily cortisol decline (diurnal slope) was also significantly le...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 10, 2013·Sleep Medicine Reviews·Greg J ElderJason G Ellis
Jan 1, 2016·Research in Developmental Disabilities·Brian Lovell, Mark A Wetherell
Sep 6, 2011·Psychoneuroendocrinology·Brian LovellMark Wetherell
Dec 5, 2014·Stress : the International Journal on the Biology of Stress·Mark A WetherellMichael A Smith
Mar 21, 2018·The Journal of Social Psychology·Eric J VanmanStephanie J Tobin
Oct 11, 2017·Stress and Health : Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress·Deirdre A KatzPatricia A Jennings
Apr 10, 2020·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Shaun PrenticeTaryn Elliott
Aug 6, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Douglas MacDonald, Mark A Wetherell
Jan 16, 2021·Human Resources for Health·Yingxi ZhaoMike English
Aug 17, 2021·Stress : the International Journal on the Biology of Stress·Daniel RipponMark A Wetherell

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