ArticleCureus2025
Imposter Syndrome Among Medical Professionals in General Surgery: A Multi-center Observational Study.
Article in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundImposter syndrome (IS) occurs when high-achieving individuals have a pervasive sense of self-doubt combined with fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite objective measures of success in their career. Among groups of high-achieving individuals, IS has been identified as a major contributor to burnout, endangering their mental and emotional well-being. Insufficient research has been conducted regarding the seriousness of IS among medical staff in general surgery departments. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and severity of IS among a population of medical staff working in general surgery in district general hospitals (DGHs) in the Southeast of England. MATERIALS AND
methodsThis was a cross-sectional survey design. An anonymous Microsoft form containing socio-demographic characteristics and the Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale (CIPS) was shared with medical staff across seven DSGs who had provided informed consent to take part in the study. The data was exported to IBM SPSS version 20 and analysed using descriptive analysis.
resultsA total of 76 out of 150 medical staff responded to the survey with a response rate of 51%. Most of the respondents were male (40, 52.6%), aged 35-44 years (42, 55.3%), of Asian or Asian British ethnicity (37, 48.7%), and staff grade ST3-ST8 (33, 43.4%). The overall mean CIPS among all the respondents was 66.41±14.68, with a range of 20 to 96. The respondents demonstrated various levels of IS, with 6.6%, 25.0%, 53.3% and 13.1% reporting mild, moderate, significant and intense IS, respectively.
conclusionsThere was a high prevalence of IS among the medical staff in general surgery. There was a statistically significant difference in moderate to intense IS CIPS among the female gender and those aged 35 to 44 years. However, there was no statistically significant difference in reported CIPS among respondents' staff grade and ethnicity.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.