Prevalence of Stress, Anxiety and Depression among Medical Doctors at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Generally, medical doctors’ psychological health is left unnoticed not just by the people in society but by the doctors too. In developed countries like the USA, a lot of work has been done to assess doctors’ psychological or mental status, however developing nations like Ghana significantly fall behind. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression among medical doctors at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed. Population census data was used to select all the 125 medical doctors at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital into the study. However, 111 were available and participated in the study. A structured questionnaire and a modified DASS-21 was used to measure the prevalence of stress, anxiety and depression, whiles data was analysed with STATA version 15. The study showed that medical doctors experience stress, anxiety and depression. Further enquiries revealed that workload was a major determinant of stress. Although the study sought to determine the association between stress, anxiety and depression and the different professional ranks and gender, the findings were statistically insignificant; other independent variables such as marital status, department and work experience were rather found to be significantly associated with stress, anxiety and depression. “Doctors are not immune” to stress, anxiety and depression. This should prompt measures which would help improve their psychological health, which would in turn improve on patient care. Key Words: Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Prevalence, Medical Doctors