Apps to reduce burnout, depression and suicidality among healthcare students and professionals
Citation: Pospos S, Young IT, Downs N, et al. Web-based tools and mobile applications to mitigate burnout, depression, and suicidality among healthcare students and professionals: a systematic review. Academic Psychiatry. 2018;42(1):109-20.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: National Institute on Mental Health (USA) and the John A Majda MD Memorial Fund.
What is this? Web-based and mobile applications that help healthcare students and providers cope with the challenges imposed by their high levels of burnout, depression and suicidality may help healthcare systems to become more resilient.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for articles evaluating stress, burnout, depression and suicide prevention or intervention for healthcare students or providers and used the five categories of programs with significant effectiveness (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (online), meditation, mindfulness, breathing, and relaxation techniques) that they identified to search for related web-based and mobile applications for stress, burnout, depression and suicide prevention. They restricted their searches to articles published in English and did the search in December 2016. They included 14 web-based and 22 mobile applications for further evaluation of their relevance, applicability to healthcare providers and the strength of findings on their effectiveness.
What was found: The authors of the review identified seven web-based tools and mobile applications that might healthcare programs navigate resources designed to foster wellness and mitigate burnout, depression and suicide risk among healthcare students and providers.
Of the tools reviewed only one was judged to be evidence-based and only 10 of 36 tools had evidence of efficacy.
None of the tools specifically target healthcare students or providers.
Implications: The authors of the review concluded that, despite the lack of resources targeted to healthcare students and providers, existing tools and applications can reach a range of them and help to prevent mental health problems.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of occupation.
This summary was prepared by Ana Pizarro, checked by Yasmeen Saeed and Cristián Mansilla, and finalized by Mike Clarke.