Suicide Rates Among Women Doctors

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Suicide Rates Among Women Doctors

Women doctors are more than twice as likely to commit suicide than other women, say researchers writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. In contrast, male doctors are less likely to commit suicide than other men.

Keith Hawton (University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry, Waneford Hospital, Oxford, UK) and colleagues identified all suicides committed by NHS doctors in England and Wales between 1979 and 1995, and compared the results with data from the Office for National Statistics on death rates for the general population.

In all, 223 doctors died by suicide or from an undetermined cause during the study period. The annual suicide rates for male and female doctors were 19.2 and 18.8 per 100,000, respectively. Between 1991 and 1995, the suicide rate for female doctors was 12.62 per 100,000, which compares with just 6.3 per 100,000 for the general population.

For male doctors during the same period, the suicide rate was 14.28 per 100,000, compared with 21.0 per 100,000 for the general population. In addition, anesthetists were almost seven-times, psychiatrists five-times and GPs over 3.5-times more likely to commit suicide than other doctors.

The authors conclude: 'The increased risk in female doctors is of particular concern in the light of the steadily increasing number and proportion of women in the medical workforce.' Professor John Ashton, co-editor of the Journal, commented: 'It may be that the sort of women who go into medicine are high performing, very bright perfectionists who tend to become frustrated.'

J Epidemiol Community Health 2001; 55: 296?300

http://www.psychiatrymatters.md/news/2001/week_16/day_4/p_0000049996.asp

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