Psychedelic Use Among Psychiatric Medication Prescribers: Effects on Well-Being, Depression, Anxiety, and Associations with Patterns of Use, Reported Harms, and Transformative Mental States

Mental health problems including depression, anxiety, suicide, and burnout are common among health care providers. Resilience and well-being are factors thought to protect against these incidents. Clinical trials and naturalistic studies of psychedelic compounds have shown decreases in depression, anxiety, and suicidality while suggesting improvements in well-being. This secondary analysis of a large cross-sectional online survey consisting of participants with at least one lifetime psychedelic use sought to examine how use affects health care providers who treat psychiatric disorders with medications. In total, 228 respondents retrospectively completed measures of depression, anxiety, and well-being before and after psychedelic exposure. They also reported lifetime use, harms attributed to use, and preferred psychedelic agent. Psychedelic use was associated with improvements in depression, anxiety, and well-being. Reported suicidality decreased and resilience increased. A factor analysis suggested that a cluster of mystical, interpersonal, and personal items predicted improvement in depression, anxiety, well-being, suicidality, and resilience. Preferred psychedelic agent did not affect outcomes. Frequency of use was not associated with outcomes although differences in effect sizes were seen. Harm reported was consistent with the general population, with 13.2% (n = 30) reporting at least one harm. Pre-exposure alcohol use, aggressive impulses, and desire to die by suicide improved most often while marijuana use most often worsened or did not change. These results are consistent with clinical trials and naturalistic studies examining psychedelic use in the general population and suggest that health care providers who treat psychiatric disorders with medications may benefit from psychedelic use, although some harm was reported. Given the current mental health crisis among health care providers, further research is warranted to examine whether interventions utilizing psychedelics could improve well-being and effectiveness of health care providers while decreasing adverse mental health outcomes associated with working in health care.