OBJECTİVE:The suicidal intent is a sudden impulse and results from a vast variety of reasons. The suicide rates among physicians are found to be higher than general population according to recent studies.

AIM: This study aims to determine occupational satisfaction, depression and suicidal intent of residents of a University Hospital in Istanbul.

METHOD: The type of research is descriptive. The population of the research is assistant physicians working in a University Hospital in Istanbul. 144 physicians who agreed to participate and were available during the data collection period participated in the study. Since the sampling method was not used and the participants were reached haphazardly, our study could be descriptive, not cross-sectional. This is a major limitation of our study. The mean age of the physicians was 27,1 and 94 (65,3%) were females and 50 (37,4%) were males.

The questionnaire which consisted of descriptive questions and 3 scales (Beck depression inventory (BDI), Minnesota job satisfaction scale, Eysenk personality questionnaire (EPQ)) were applied to residents working in the University Hospital by face-to-face interview method. Research is approved by Marmara University Ethics Committee. The data was analyzed and Chi-square and Fischer Exact tests were applied. The statistical significance is defined as p value being less than 0,05.

RESULTS: According to EPQ, 62 (43,1%) of the residents had neuroticism, 54 (37,5%) were extraverted, 6 (4,2%) had psychocytic personality, 22 (15, 3%) them were included in the 'lie' group because they gave inconsistent answers to EPQ. According to the BDI, 64 (44,4%) were normal; mild mood-change in 30 (20.8%), borderline clinical depression in 22 (15,3%), moderate depression in 24 (16,7%), and severe depression in 4 (2,8%). They were found 90 (62,5%) of them stated that they had previously decided to quit the profession and 54 (37.5%) of them did not have such an idea. Among the participants, 22 (15,3%) of them stated that suicide may be a reasonable option in some situations that may happen in life, while 122 (84,7%) do not consider suicide reasonable in any case. While 2 of male physicians (4%) considered suicide as a reasonable option; Of the 94 women physicians, 21 (22,3%) considered suicide as a reasonable option ( p= 0,0006 ). While 62 (59,6%) of 104 internal sciences physicians who participated in the study answered ‘yes’ to question “Have you ever thought about leaving the profession?”; 28 (70%) of 40 surgical sciences physicians, answered ‘yes’ to this question (p=0,249).

CONCLUSION: In the research, it has been revealed that in some situations suicide is being seen as reasonable with a statistically significant difference between female and male residents. Also most of them are uncomfortable about their working conditions. Significant differences were found between female and male physicians as far as the suicidal ideation was concerned and also between the surgical sciences and internal sciences physicians in terms of the idea of leaving the profession. There is a need for analytical studies that can show the relationship between suicidal ideation, professional satisfaction and depression rather than coexistence.

KEY WORDS: resident, physician, suicide, depression, personality