The relationship between perfectionism and symptoms of depression in medical school applicants

Abstract

Background: The association between perfectionism and depression in the medical profession can ultimately influence physicians' performance negatively. In medical students, especially maladaptive perfectionism is connected with distress and lower academic performance. The expression of perfectionism and symptoms of depression at the time of medical school application is not known. Therefore, we explored perfectionism and symptoms of depression in participants of multiple mini-interviews for medical school admission and investigated possible differences between applicants who were eventually admitted or rejected. Methods: After the multiple mini-interviews admission procedure at Hamburg Medical School in August 2018, 146 applicants filled out a questionnaire including sociodemographic data and the following validated instruments: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale by Hewitt and Flett (MPS-H), Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale by Frost (MPS-F), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and a 10-item version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10). The two groups of admitted and rejected applicants were compared and the correlation between symptoms of depression and perfectionism further explored. Results: The admitted applicants were significantly more extrovert and had lower depression scores compared to the rejected applicants. In both groups, the composite scales of Adaptive Perfectionism (r =.21, p =.011) and Maladaptive Perfectionism (r =.43, p