Alcohol, substance use, and other risk-factors of impairment in a sample of physicians-in-training

Abstract

This article examines survey data on alcohol and drug use, stress and other risk factors of impairment in nonclinical samples of physicians and medical students. Previously unpublished data on a sample of physicians-in-training showed they were healthy nonsmokers, experiencing many feelings of job stress, but were generally light drinkers and suffered few adverse effects of drinking. Young physicians and medical students were not very different from comparable non-physician populations in their use of recreational and therapeutic drugs, although the medical professionals had slightly below average use rates. Regression analyses found that recreational drug use and drinking stemmed mainly from sensation seeking, whereas therapeutic drug use was stress-related.