OBJECTIVE:

To determine the prevalence of depression and burnout among residents in paediatrics and to establish if a relation exists between these disorders and medication errors.

DESIGN:

Prospective cohort study.

SETTING:

Three urban freestanding children's hospitals in the United States.

PARTICIPANTS:

123 residents in three paediatric residency programmes.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Prevalence of depression using the Harvard national depression screening day scale, burnout using the Maslach burnout inventory, and rate of medication errors per resident month.

RESULTS:

24 (20%) of the participating residents met the criteria for depression and 92 (74%) met the criteria for burnout. Active surveillance yielded 45 errors made by participants. Depressed residents made 6.2 times as many medication errors per resident month as residents who were not depressed: 1.55 (95% confidence interval 0.57 to 4.22) compared with 0.25 (0.14 to 0.46, P<0.001). Burnt out residents and non-burnt out residents made similar rates of errors per resident month: 0.45 (0.20 to 0.98) compared with 0.53 (0.21 to 1.33, P=0.2).

CONCLUSIONS:

Depression and burnout are major problems among residents in paediatrics. Depressed residents made significantly more medical errors than their non-depressed peers; however, burnout did not seem to correlate with an increased rate of medical errors.