Science / Medicine : High Rate of Depression

One-eighth to one-fourth of medical students suffer from serious depression, a “disturbingly high” rate far exceeding that in the general population, researchers said last week.

“The psychiatric illness of major depression is a significant health problem for medical students, interns and residents,” Dr. Mark Zoccolillo of the Health Sciences Center of Texas Tech University in Amarillo, said in an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

“Major depression . . . accounts for half of the students who drop out of medical school. There is a strong association between major depression and suicide,” said Zoccolillo, noting that 52 medical students had killed themselves between 1974 and 1981.

The study, conducted by the department of psychiatry at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, involved 121 medical students “at a Midwestern medical college.” At least 12% of students in one medical school class “showed considerable depressive symptoms” at any point when they were studied during their first three years of school.

Near the end of the students’ second year, shortly before final exams and the first part of a national medical exam, the largest number of students--25%--had serious signs of depression.