Tran Ulrich S, Berger Nina, Arendasy Martin E, Greitemeyer Tobias, Himmelbauer Monika, Hutzler Florian, Kraft Hans-Georg, Oettl Karl, Papousek Ilona, Vitouch Oliver, Voracek Martin
Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, School of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
BMC Med Educ. 2017 May 3;17(1):81. doi: 10.1186/s12909-017-0921-4.
Medical 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).
We 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.
For 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.
The 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.
医学生中医生亲属的数量高于根据医生在总人口中的患病率所预期的数量。在来自英裔美国人、斯堪的纳维亚和德语区的调查中，已出现了医生这种家族聚集效应的证据。特别是，奥地利过去的数据表明，医学以及心理学和心理治疗专业在医学和心理学本科生中都存在家族聚集现象。在此，我们通过研究以下内容扩展了先前的相关研究：（1）家族聚集效应在奥地利所有相关的（八所）公立大学的全国性学生普查中的适用程度；（2）医学和心理学专业学生的效应是否具有可比性；（3）这些效应是否适用于三个相互关联的健康专业（医学、心理学和心理治疗）的亲属。
我们基于奥地利一年级医学和心理学学生（n = 881 和 920）的整个队列普查，使用广义线性混合模型研究了医生、心理学家和心理治疗师的家族聚集情况。
对于这两个学科，我们都发现医生、心理学家和心理治疗师存在强烈的家族聚集现象。与先前的结果相比，各学科内部出现了方向相反的时间趋势：医学生中医生的家族聚集现象有所减少，而心理学专业学生中心理学家的家族聚集现象有所增加。此外，存在亲属性别效应（即男性医生亲属多于女性），但没有显著的学生性别效应（即总体而言，男女生报告的所有三个相关专业的亲属数量相似）。此外，还存在年龄优势效应，即有医学或心理治疗专业亲属的学生比没有此类亲属的学生年龄更小，这表明他们的职业决策更早。
在奥地利的医学和心理学本科生中，医生、心理学家和心理治疗师的家族聚集程度很高。讨论了这些发现的影响（如性别平等、医学领域的女性化、课程实施和学生咨询的想法）、研究局限性以及未来研究的方向。
