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

Brant, Heather, Wetherell, Mark, Lightman, Stafford, Crown, Anna and Vedhara, Kavita (2010) 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, 13 (2). pp. 155-162. ISSN 1025-3890

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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 less at this test time. These findings have implications for the discord apparent between self-report and physiological measures of psychological stress.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	burnout, cortisol, hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, occupational-stress, pre-registration house officers, psychiatric morbidity
Subjects:	C800 Psychology C900 Others in Biological Sciences
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	EPrint Services
Date Deposited:	10 May 2010 14:03
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 16:29
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2431

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