Unto the third generation: evidence for strong familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists among first-year medical and psychology students in a nationwide Austrian cohort census

BMC Medical Education

Research Article

Florian Hutzler¹  Martin Voracek²  Ulrich S. Tran²  Nina Berger²  Monika Himmelbauer³  Ilona Papousek⁴  Martin E. Arendasy⁴  Tobias Greitemeyer⁵  Oliver Vitouch⁶  Hans-Georg Kraft⁷  Karl Oettl⁸ 

[1] Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria;Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, School of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria;Department of Medical Education, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria;Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria;Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria;Department of Psychology, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria;Division of Cell Genetics, Department of Medical Genetics, Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria;Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria;

关键词: Familial aggregation;    Medical profession;    Psychology;    Psychotherapy;    Undergraduates;    Nationwide survey;    Gender equity;    Austria;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12909-017-0921-4

 received in 2016-07-07, accepted in 2017-04-26,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMedical students present higher numbers of physician relatives than expectable from the total population prevalence of physicians. Evidence for such a familial aggregation effect of physicians has emerged in investigations from the Anglo-American, Scandinavian, and German-speaking areas. In particular, past data from Austria suggest a familial aggregation of the medical, as well as of the psychological and psychotherapeutic, professions among medical and psychology undergraduates alike. Here, we extend prior related studies by examining (1) the extent to which familial aggregation effects apply to the whole nation-wide student census of all relevant (eight) public universities in Austria; (2) whether effects are comparable for medical and psychology students; (3) and whether these effects generalize to relatives of three interrelated health professions (medicine, psychology, and psychotherapy).MethodsWe investigated the familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists, based on an entire cohort census of first-year medical and psychology students (n = 881 and 920) in Austria with generalized linear mixed models.ResultsFor both disciplines, we found strong familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists. As compared with previous results, directionally opposite time trends within disciplines emerged: familial aggregation of physicians among medical students has decreased, whilst familial aggregation of psychologists among psychology students has increased. Further, there were sex-of-relative effects (i.e., more male than female physician relatives), but no substantial sex-of-student effects (i.e., male and female students overall reported similar numbers of relatives for all three professions of interest). In addition, there were age-benefit effects, i.e., students with a relative in the medical or the psychotherapeutic profession were younger than students without, thus suggesting earlier career decisions.ConclusionsThe familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists is high among medical and psychology undergraduates in Austria. Discussed are implications of these findings (e.g., gender equity, feminization of the medical field, ideas for curricular implementation and student counselling), study limitations, and avenues for future research.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017