ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1615471
Self-reported mental health outcomes of International Medical Graduates in Australia: a cross-sectional survey
Provisionally accepted
Sunita Joann Rebecca Healey1,2,3*
Kristy Fakes1,2
Bunmi Sherifat Malau-Aduli1,4Lucy Leigh1,2
Balakrishnan R Nair1,2,3- 1The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia
- 2Hunter Medical Research Institute, The University of Newcastle, New Lambton, New South Wales, Australia
- 3Hunter New England Health, New Lambton, New South Wales, Australia
- 4James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
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International medical graduates (IMGs) are an important migrant workforce with unique challenges which may compound mental health outcomes. We examined the rates of selfreported wellbeing, psychological distress and burnout by IMGs in Australia by undertaking a cross-sectional survey of IMGs. In late 2023, an online survey of three validated selfreporting mental health instruments was distributed non-randomly to IMGs across Australia, to identify symptoms of wellbeing, likelihood of psychological distress, and burnout. Of the 286 participants who started the survey, 199 completed the Wellbeing instrument, 191 completed the Kessler (K6) instrument, and 181 completed the Burnout instrument. The calculated wellbeing mean score of participants was 54.6/100 [SD 23.18; median score: 80/100 (27 participants); range: 0-100]. 30/191 (15.7%) participants recorded a K6 score between 19-30, indicating a high likelihood of serious psychological distress. 84/181 (46.4%)participants recorded a score indicating some level of burnout. Statistically significant associations (p<0.001) between 'Wellbeing' and 'Burnout' versus 'Discrimination experienced in the last 5 years' were identified. IMGs may be at risk of poor mental health outcomes resulting from their unique experiences, including perceived discrimination.Further exploration in larger and more robust studies is recommended to confirm preliminary findingsand address challenges faced by this important migrant workforce.
Keywords: wellbeing, burnout, migrant, Workplace, Discrimination, Foreign medical graduate
Received: 21 Apr 2025; Accepted: 11 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Healey, Fakes, Malau-Aduli, Leigh and Nair. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sunita Joann Rebecca Healey, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia
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