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 Survey results from more than 2,000 first-year medical residents, or
interns, whose average age was 28, suggested that political events
were more likely to bring down mood than non-political events such
as Hurricane Irma and the Las Vegas shooting, researchers reported
in The BMJ.
The biggest drop in mood followed the presidential election of 2016
and the inauguration, researchers report. Female physicians
experienced a bigger impact - twice that of their male colleagues.
"Following the 2016 election, there were a lot of anecdotal reports
in the media about young people feeling stressed," said study leader
Elena Frank, director of the Intern Health Study at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "We were in a unique position to study
reactions to the election and events that followed. And our findings
in young folks just provide some scientific backing for those
feelings."
In general, Frank said, "political events are having a more profound
impact on people in comparison to non-political events. Maybe it's
the pervasiveness of social media making it impossible to ignore
them, or an increasing polarization that's leading to an emotional
roller-coaster."
The Intern Health Study is an ongoing project to assess stress and
depression during the first year of residency training in the U.S.
Frank and her colleagues focused on 2,345 interns who responded to
the study during three academic years: 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
The group included 1,301 women and 1,044 men.
Before internships started, participants completed an initial
survey. The, during the year, interns responded daily to the
following single-question measure of mood: "On a scale of 1-10 how
was your mood today?"
Frank and her colleagues then identified the eight political events
and eight non-political events in the U.S. that had the greatest
impacts since the 2016 presidential election, based on a History
Channel summary of notable 2017 and 2018 events. For each event, the
researchers queried Google Trends to determine the date of peak
public interest in the U.S.
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Political events included: presidential election, presidential
inauguration, Muslim travel ban, failure to repeal the ACA, the
executive order preventing separation of families at the southern
border, the Kavanaugh court confirmation, the migrant caravan,
midterm elections, and the failure to pass a budget providing
funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Non-political events included: Super Bowl LI, solar eclipse,
Hurricane Irma, Las Vegas shooting, shooting at Parkland high
school, royal wedding, Hurricane Florence, and California wildfires.
Overall, the interns had notable changes in mood following six of
the nine political events, with the largest coming after the 2016
presidential election. Statistically meaningful declines in mood
also occurred after the inauguration, the travel ban and the Supreme
Court confirmation hearing. The researchers also found a slight
uptick in mood following the executive order to keep migrant
families together and the failure to pass a spending bill with money
for the border wall.
"I'm hoping this means that we're moving toward being more
politically engaged," Frank said. "Historically there's been a
debate about how much of a role doctors should play. But it seems
with so many important health implications, doctors should take a
stand for the wellbeing of the American public."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2RDFV58 The BMJ, online December 9, 2019.
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