Substance use among vocational trainees in Australia: differences between medical specialties.

BACKGROUND

There have been few large-scale nationally representative studies on the prevalence of substance use among doctors. In addition, the association of different medical specialties with the use of different substances requires further research.

AIMS: To investigate how the use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs varied between junior doctors enrolled in different specialty training programmes.

METHODS

A secondary analysis was conducted on a national survey of 12 252 Australian doctors. The population of interest was junior doctors currently enrolled in a specialty training programme, termed vocational trainees (VT; n = 1890; 15.4% of the overall sample). Self-report prevalence of current alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use were assessed and hazardous alcohol use was assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between specialty and substance use, adjusting for demographic characteristics when required.

RESULTS

One in six VT reported hazardous levels of alcohol use (n = 268; 17.3%). After adjusting for confounders, the association between the prevalence of alcohol use and the specialties of emergency medicine/intensive care unit (odds ratio (OR) 2.15; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.40-3.32; P < 0.001), anaesthetics (OR 2.53; 95% CI 1.35-4.76; P = 0.004) and obstetrics/gynaecology (OR 1.89; 95% CI 1.19-3.02; P = 0.007) remained significant. No significant associations were found between tobacco use/illicit drug use/hazardous alcohol use and medical specialty.

CONCLUSIONS

While rates of substance use and hazardous alcohol use in VT are similar, if not lower, than the general population, it poses a concern that there are higher rates of alcohol use in certain medical specialties.