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. 2024 Sep 13:02537176241273918.
doi: 10.1177/02537176241273918. Online ahead of print.

Striving Through Adversities of Professional Life to Provide Better Care: A Content Analysis of News Articles and Online Blogs on Deteriorating Mental Health of Medicos

Swati Saxena  1 , Bhanupriya Rathore  1
Affiliations

Striving Through Adversities of Professional Life to Provide Better Care: A Content Analysis of News Articles and Online Blogs on Deteriorating Mental Health of Medicos

Swati Saxena et al. Indian J Psychol Med. .

Abstract

Background: One of the noblest professions is medicine, which comprises ancillary services, medical students, and other paramedics. The challenges faced by the medical fraternity are infinite and uncertain.

Aim: This study aims to thoroughly understand the professional challenges faced by medical professionals that can lead to mental health issues.

Methods: A content analysis of 64 news articles and online blogs was done. The articles and blogs that addressed mental health issues among medical professionals were shortlisted. The data retrieved was accessed digitally between 2016 and 2024. Frequency analysis was done using QDA Miner Lite (free version).

Results: The findings were summarized into six themes and 17 sub-themes, showing a high frequency of rising mental health issues among medicos, lack of organizational support, poor work-life balance, violence, and sacrificed health, with other less frequent codes like toxic seniority, hostile work culture, negative consequences of reporting mental health problems and hiding vulnerability to protect self-efficacy.

Conclusion: The data retrieved from various news articles and blogs presents the personal experiences and real-life struggles of medical professionals. The outcome of this study is to understand the key issues affecting medicos at personal, professional, social, emotional, and spiritual levels.

Keywords: Content analysis; blogs; medical professionals; mental health; news articles; suicide.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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