An Exploration of Residents' Implicit Biases Towards Depression-a Pilot Study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology
• Public Health

Background:

• Implicit attitudes, operating outside conscious awareness, can influence automatic responses and physician-patient interactions.
• Understanding implicit biases is crucial for addressing potential disparities in healthcare delivery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the nature and extent of implicit biases concerning depression among internal medicine and psychiatry residents.
• To compare implicit associations related to depression between these two medical specialties.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive and comparative study involving 51 internal medicine and 35 psychiatry residents from three programs each.
• Participants anonymously completed four online Implicit Association Tests (IATs) measuring associations with depression regarding attitude, permanence, controllability, and etiology.
• IATs assessed implicit links between depression and concepts like good/bad, temporary/permanent, controllable/uncontrollable, and physical/psychological illness.

Main Results:

• Internal medicine residents exhibited significant implicit associations between depression and negative attitudes, uncontrollability, temporariness, and a psychological etiology.
• Psychiatry residents demonstrated an implicit association only between depression and a psychological etiology.
• Internal medicine residents were more likely than psychiatry residents to associate depression with negative attitudes and uncontrollability.

Conclusions:

• Internal medicine residents displayed implicit biases in their attitudes toward depression, with notable differences compared to psychiatry residents.
• These findings suggest a need for further research to confirm these results and investigate the impact of such biases on clinical care.
• Replication of this pilot study is recommended to validate the observed differences in implicit biases between medical specialties.