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Abstract
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The editors of Lancet Psychiatry recently emphasised the negative effects of patient suicide on psychiatrists. Their editorial describes how patient suicide can profoundly affect psychiatrists in both their personal and professional lives through complex emotional turmoil.
However, the editors insufficiently highlight the fact that first exposure to patient suicide happens more often during residency and early career and that this early exposure is highly troubling and challenging for young psychiatrists.To address and prevent the negative effects of patient suicide on psychiatrists, we should consider how early exposure affects young psychiatrists in their personal and professional identities.
In a survey of 764 French psychiatrists,we reported that nearly 90% were first exposed to patient suicide during their early careers. Moreover, compared with exposure among more seasoned psychiatrists, exposure during the early career phase was more strongly associated with negative emotional states, including guilt, sadness, and shock, and with greater feelings of responsibility. Nearly one in four (23%) early career psychiatrists considered changing their career path in the aftermath of the exposure. Early career psychiatrists can indeed experience strong and profound feelings of incompetence and question their professional abilities and skills as competent psychiatrists. Furthermore, education programmes that do not discuss patient suicide or how to deal with its repercussions were found to be a prominent risk factor for the tridimensional (ie, traumatic, emotional, and professional) effect.
Therefore, recognising that early career psychiatrists are more likely to be first exposed to patient suicide than later in their career, and are therefore more vulnerable to the repercussions of patient suicide, must be the first step in initiating structural, academic, and cultural change in prevention strategies aimed at buffering the effect of patient suicide on psychiatrists
Language: en |