Indicators of vulnerability associated with less healthy circadian rhythms in undergraduate medical interns

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the association between circadian health parameters and psychological and biological vulnerability, a cross-sectional study was conducted with 15 undergraduate medical interns using the Brief Resilience Scale, the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, and an ambulatory circadian monitoring device. Circadian Health construct was confirmed by factor analysis. Vulnerability factors (history of depression and low resilience) were associated to lower circadian health of motor activity and temperature rhythms. The findings suggest that not only being depressed but also having had depressive episodes in the past, as well as having low resilience, are associated with chronodisruption, and may increase the risk for developing new episodes of depression.

KEYWORDS:

• Circadian health
• vulnerability
• stress
• depression
• undergraduate interns

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Dr. Fernando Austria Corrales and Dr. María Guadalupe Flores-Alcantar for their contribution to this work. To CONACYT-SNI for the support of scholarships 73097 and 65590.

Disclosure of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by grants from Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica DGAPA-PAPIIT-UNAM [IN308917].