Our focus on doctors working in the NHS reflects the pressing recruitment and retention issues in this profession (e.g. doctors-in-training, general practice, emergency medicine), the significant potential for sick doctors to cause harm to patients and the financial implications of doctors’ mental ill-health and loss from the profession.
Changing the work environment to prevent the development of mental ill-health would be preferable to a focus on alleviating the ‘symptoms’, such as presenteeism, absenteeism and workforce retention. However, prevention strategies may be challenging and take time to implement. A multi-pronged approach of prevention, support and treatment is likely to be needed for the foreseeable future.
This research aimed to improve understanding of how, why and in what contexts mental health services and support interventions can be designed in order to minimise the negative impacts of providing care on UK doctors’ mental ill-health.
PROSPERO record: 2017 CRD42017069870
Report: Carrieri D, Pearson M, Mattick K, Papoutsi C, Briscoe S, Wong G, Jackson M. (2020). Interventions to minimise doctors’ mental ill-health and its impacts on the workforce and patient care: the Care Under Pressure realist review. Health Services and Delivery Research, 8(19), 1-132
Paper: Carrieri D, Mattick K, Pearson M, Papoutsi C, Briscoe S, Wong G, Jackson M. (2020). Optimising strategies to address mental ill-health in doctors and medical students: ‘Care Under Pressure’ realist review and implementation guidance. BMC Medicine, 18, 76.
Protocol: Carrieri D, Briscoe S, Jackson M, Mattick K, Papoutsi C, Pearson M, Wong G. (2018). ‘Care Under Pressure’: a realist review of interventions to tackle doctors’ mental ill-health and its impacts on the clinical workforce and patient care. BMJ Open, 8, e021273.
