Self-Disclosure of Mental Health History in the Medical Training Environment: A Scoping Review

(1) Background: Physicians and medical students face unique barriers balancing career progression and their mental health. Some medical schools and residency programs have described interventions in which senior clinicians, residents, or medical students disclose their experiences with mental health diagnosis and treatment to peers, students, and those junior in training status. (2) Methods: The authors conducted a scoping review to describe how medical training environments incorporate the self-disclosure of mental health diagnosis and treatment by senior clinicians to junior trainees. They searched six databases and hand-searched references from relevant publications. Following Arksey and O’Malley’s steps for scoping reviews, at least two reviewers independently screened all publications for eligibility and extracted data from included publications. (3) Results: A total of 2326 unique publications were identified; eight were included. Psychiatry was the medical specialty most represented by physician–authors. One publication described an intervention that impacted learner’s behaviors, while the remainder (n = 7) focused on participant satisfaction. (4) Conclusions: Research aims often sought to describe behavior changes. However, most (n = 7) of the literature included in this study did not present the behavioral outcomes of implementing these interventions. This study aims to direct future research into the role of mental health history self-disclosure in medical training environments.