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.