Observational studyPsychiatry research2023
Suicidal thoughts and burnout among physicians during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain.
Observational study in Psychiatry research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Occupational burnout and risk of suicidality in healthcare professionals: a PRISMA-guided systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Suicide in Healthcare Workers: An Umbrella Review of Prevalence, Causes, and Preventive Strategies.Journal of primary care & community healthPooled it
- Suicide probability among physicians: an explainable machine learning analysis of depression, burnout, anxiety, and coping styles.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Job satisfaction in doctors with suicidal ideation: a national longitudinal panel study 2002-2021.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Suicidality Among Healthcare Workers in Lebanon: Associations With Childhood Adversities Amid Recent Overlapping Crises.International journal of public health · 2025Article
- Unexpected effects of pandemic-related changes on mental health: Evidence from a nationwide survey in South Korea.PloS one · 2025Article
- The impact of the first year of COVID-19 pandemic on suicides in a collection of 27 EU-related countries.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Suicidal Ideation and Death by Suicide as a Result of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spanish-Speaking Countries: Systematic Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Suicidal ideation, burnout, and their correlation among health care workers at the end of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alborz Province, Iran.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Depression symptoms and suicide risk of internal medicine residents before and after first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Factors associated with suicide in physicians: a silent stigma and public health problem that has not been studied in depth.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe exact mechanisms through which the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic could influence the prevalence of suicidal thoughts are not yet known, both in the general population and in health workers. The objectives of the present study are to determine the prevalence of suicidal thoughts in the physician population and to detect sociodemographic and clinical variables associated with presenting suicidal thoughts during the first wave of COVID-19.
methodsCross-sectional observational study via an online survey distributed in Spain in June 2020 via 52 Official Medical Associations. The sample is made up of all practicing and registered physicians in Spain (3,140 of the 270,235 registered physicians in Spain). An online questionnaire which included sociodemographic, professional and work variables, variables related to the pandemic, work data in relation to COVID-19 and clinical variables (medical-psychiatric history and previous suicidal behaviour) was distributed.
resultsIn our sample, the prevalence of serious suicidal thoughts was 6.31% and up to 17.32% of the subjects reported thoughts about killing themselves during the pandemic. Being female (Exp (B)= 1.989, p=0.001), presence of previous suicide attempts (Exp(B)= 6.127, p=<0.001), taking a psychotropic drug (Exp(B)= 2.470, p=<0.001) and working in a different area during the pandemic (Exp(B)= 1.751, p= 0.037) were associated with a higher risk of suicidal ideation. Cohabiting was a protective factor in the development of suicidal ideation although not in all our measures (Exp(B)=0.940, p=0.850 Vs Exp (B)= 0.620, p=0.018). LIMITATIONS: The main limitation of this study is its cross-sectional nature, which prevents establishing a causal relationship. As a strength, it stands out that it is a large sample of the population studied and in a particularly complex context of the pandemic.
conclusionsSuicidal thoughts among the Spanish registered physician population during the pandemic is high and mainly associated with socio-demographic factors, clinical mental health variables, and aspects of job satisfaction.
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