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Psychiatric Illness in Male Doctors and Controls: an Analysis of Scottish Hospitals In-patient Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Robin M. Murray
Robin M. Murray*
Affiliation:
Section of Clinical Neuropharmacology, Laboratory of Clinical Science, NIMH, NIH Clinical Center 10/3S229, Bethesda, Maryland 20014, USA; Institute of Psychiatry, London
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Summary

An investigation was undertaken into the first admissions to (for the years 1963, 1965, 1968, 1972) and the total discharges from (for the years 1963–72) Scottish mental hospitals and psychiatric units of male doctors and other social class I males. The overall rates for both first admission and for all discharges were more than twice as high among male doctors as among other social class I males. First admission and total discharge rates for drug dependence, alcoholism, neurotic and ‘functional’ depression and for affective psychosis were all significantly higher among doctors than non-doctors. Doctors were more likely than non-doctors to have been referred by themselves or by medical sources other than general practitioners, and were as willing as non-doctors to enter hospital voluntarily. Greater access to psychiatrists may have contributed to their higher rates of in-patient care, but it is improbable that such factors accounted for all of the excess in rates of drug dependence, alcoholism and depression.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 131 , Issue 1 , July 1977 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1977 

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