Mental Health Problems in Indonesian Internship Doctors during the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT Background All new graduate medical doctors in Indonesia will work in government healthcare facilities for one year as internship doctors. Problems such as the shortage of PPE, no specific treatment guidelines, and inadequate support from authorities, contributed to mental health problems. This study aimed to determine mental health problems and associated demographics and concerns of Indonesian internship doctors in the COVID-19 pandemic era. Methods This cross-sectional study was performed from 1 – 31 Januari 2021 via Google Form questionnaire to collect data. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the association between demographic data, concerns in internship doctors' working place, and mental health using Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21. Results Depression, anxiety, and stress in internship doctors were 32.6%, 44.1%, and 19.5% consecutively. Multivariate analysis showed that the only demographic factor associated with depression was female sex. Concerns of internship doctors were the most factors associated with mental health. Working in triage was associated with depression and stress. Donning and doffing training of PPE, difficulty to practice physical distancing and hesitancy to attend patients were associated with depression and anxiety. Difficulty to practice physical distancing in hospital w associated with anxiety and stress. Limitation Firstly, some difficulties in data collection. Secondly, the self-reported tools of mental health are not always aligned with the psychiatric assessment. Lastly, possibility of recall biases from each batch. Conclusions To minimize mental health problems of internship doctors, their concerns must be tackled. Medical schools have an important role to manage concerns of these internship doctors.