Four out of every 10 doctors in India suffer from moderate to severe stress levels owing to shortage of specialists at hospitals. A study published in the Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine revealed 21% doctors use alcohol, 18% anxiolytic or antidepressants and 14% smoke to cope with the stress. Data was captured from 700 critical care specialists, but only the completely filled 242 responses – 205 men and 37 women – were utilised for comparative and correlation analysis.
Most of the respondents (33%) were from the specialty of anaesthesia, followed by intensivists (32%), internal medicine (19%), pulmonologists (7%) and paediatricians (3%), among others. The authors of the study found that the critical care specialists have higher stress levels owing to long working hours, high mortality rates in the ICU and the responsibility of having to care for VIP patients. “Stress today is…
