RSS Feeds
Is There a Connection Between High Educational Debt and Suicidal Ideation Among Medical Students?
- Liselotte N. Dyrbye, MD;
- Jeff A. Sloan, PhD; and
- Tait D. Shanafelt, MD
IN RESPONSE:
We thank Drs. Yoon and Arora for their thoughtful letter. We agree that debt is a substantial source of stress for today's medical student. As reported, students with more than $100 000 of educational debt were 1.47 times more likely to have suicidal ideation during the previous year than students with less than $50 000 in reported debt on univariate analysis. Despite this association, debt was not independently associated with suicidal ideation during the previous year on multivariate analysis. The amount of debt that students reported was associated with other factors, such as age, relationship status, parental status, year in school, and burnout (all P < 0.02). This observation suggests that the relationship between debt and suicidal ideation may be mediated through interactions between debt and burnout or other characteristics rather than directly. This possibility is worthy of further study. We also believe it is important to identify what personal and professional characteristics are associated with recovery from burnout. We hope this information can inform efforts to assist struggling students. We are in the process of performing a comprehensive formal analysis of this aspect, which will be the subject of a future article.
Liselotte N. Dyrbye, MD
Jeff A. Sloan, PhD
Tait D. Shanafelt, MD
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Rochester, MN 55905
Article and Author Information
-
Potential Financial Conflicts of Interest: None disclosed.
