Prevalence of depressive symptoms in nurses compared to the general population based on Propensity Score Matching: A nationwide cross-sectional study in China

Background: Depressive symptoms have a series of negative effects and are considered especially severe among nurses, whereas there is a lack of quantitative studies comparing the risk of depressive symptoms between nurses and the general population.Methods: We respectively conducted a nationwide cross-sectional online survey among 17,582 Chinese nurses from July to August 2018, and 101,120 Chinese community residents from January to February 2019. The questionnaire covered social-demographic characteristics and depressive symptoms for both, work-related factors and life-related factors for nurses. Propensity Score Matching was performed to match nurses and residents by gender, age, educational level, marital status, and habitual residence.Results: Before Propensity Score Matching, the risk of depressive symptoms in nurses was higher than residents (OR, 2.16; 95% CI, 2.07-2.26). After matching, there were 15,256 nurses and residents respectively, and the risk in nurses was higher (OR, 2.14; 95% CI, 2.02-2.27). Logistic regression showed that longer years of service (OR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.30-1.83), higher night shift frequency (OR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.35-1.64), perceived shortage of nurses (OR, 1.98; 95% CI, 1.84-2.13), suffered verbal violence (OR, 2.43; 95% CI, 2.21-2.66) and physical violence (OR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.64-1.98) were risk factors for depressive symptoms in nurses. Limitations: Convenience sampling and online survey were adopted in this cross-sectional study, which may diminish the representativeness of samples.Conclusions: Compared with the general population, nurses have a higher risk of depressive symptoms in China. Reasonable work allocation, adequate staffing, scientific shift system and violence emergency system should be implemented.

Automated summary

A nationwide survey in China showed that nurses have a higher risk of depressive symptoms compared to the general population, with risk factors including longer years of service, high night shift frequency, perceived shortage of nurses, verbal and physical violence.