The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic were many and daunting. Almost overnight, the lives of millions of people all over Europe was disrupted and people had to adapt to a completely new situation. Healthcare personal were amongst the ones most affected by it, whether by changes in their everyday work routine or by being the people directly in charge of responding to the demands of the pandemic. Trainees are an indispensable part of healthcare personal and, as a result, they were vastly affected by the pandemic.

Discussing the role of National Trainees Associations (NTAs) in pandemic times, including how they dealt with the new challenges, their successes and hardships, and their steps going forward.

Gathering of institutional information about the work of the Portuguese, Irish and Turkish NTAs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Critical appraisal of each of their contributions and projects.

There were impacts to trainees’ clinical work, formative activities and even personal lives. Amidst this turmoil, NTAs were precious institutions. Their objective is to represent the trainees of each country, looking for formative opportunities and linking trainees. During the pandemic, the work developed by the NTAs increase in importance, serving as a beacon of important information and as intermediaries in a number of discussions. They also aimed to minimize the impact on formative activities, whether by providing recommendations or by organizing some form of educational activity.

We provide some national examples – Portugal, Ireland and Turkey – and draw comparisons and lessons from each one.

No significant relationships.

There is a shortage of psychiatrists worldwide. Within Europe, psychiatric trainees can move between countries, which increases the problem in some countries and alleviates it in others. However, little is known about the reasons psychiatric trainees move to another country.

Survey of psychiatric trainees in 33 European countries, exploring how frequently psychiatric trainees have migrated or want to migrate, their reasons to stay and leave the country, and the countries where they come from and where they move to. A 61-item self-report questionnaire was developed, covering questions about their demographics, experiences of short-term mobility (from 3 months up to 1 year), experiences of long-term migration (of more than 1 year) and their attitudes towards migration.

A total of 2281 psychiatric trainees in Europe participated in the survey, of which 72.0% have ‘ever’ considered to move to a different country in their future, 53.5% were considering it ‘now’, at the time of the survey, and 13.3% had already moved country. For these immigrant trainees, academic was the main reason they gave to move from their country of origin. For all trainees, the overall main reason for which they would leave was financial (34.4%), especially in those with lower (<500€) incomes (58.1%), whereas in those with higher (>2500€) incomes, personal reasons were paramount (44.5%).

A high number of psychiatric trainees considered moving to another country, and their motivation largely reflects the substantial salary differences. These findings suggest tackling financial conditions and academic opportunities.

Despite efforts to unify psychiatric education among European member countries, there are still considerable variations between national training programmes. To ensure equivalence of training standards the current tendency of recommended guidelines and reports is steering psychiatric training towards becoming more competency focused.

The research group of the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT) conducted a multi-national study on postgraduate psychiatry training. The aims are to assess the psychiatric trainees’ experiences and opinions on their national training and assessment methods in respect to the Union européenne des médecins spécialistes (UEMS) 2009 competencies framework.

This study surveyed 745 psychiatric trainees from 10 EFPT member countries using a questionnaire designed specifically for assessing this issue.

In this sample, the majority are aware of having a competency based training programme but 86.5% are poorly acquainted with the UEMS competencies framework. All key competencies were rated as being important but not all as being relevant in the assessment process. One's level of preparedness and the degree of education one's receives during their training differs from one competency to another. Trainees who aren’t satisfied with their national training would be in favour of taking an end of training Pan-European exam which differs from the one's that are satisfied and wouldn’t be interested in undergoing this assessment method.

This sample isn’t fully acquainted with the competency-based concept for postgraduate training. The ones satisfied with their postgraduate psychiatric education seem to be less inclined to take an end of training Pan European exam.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Workforce migration of mental health professionals seems to have a significant impact on mental health services, both in the donor and host countries. Nevertheless, information on migration in junior doctors within Europe is very limited. Therefore, the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT) has conducted the Brain Drain Survey.

To identify, in junior doctors training in psychiatry, the impact of international short-term mobility experiences, towards a future workforce migration across countries, exploring its patterns and reasons.

In this cross-sectional international study, data were collected from 2281 psychiatric trainees in 33 countries. All participants answered to the EFPT Brain Drain Survey reporting their attitudes and experiences on mobility and migration.

Only one-third of the trainees had a short-mobility experience in their lifetime, being education the main purpose for these experiences. Interestingly, the main predictors for future migratory tendency were not only the having a income and being dissatisfied with this income, but having a short-mobility experience. In fact, people that had short-mobility experiences were two times more likely to express a migratory tendency. Trainees that went abroad were predominantly satisfied with their experiences, reporting that these influenced their attitudes towards migration, positively.

These findings show that short-term mobility has a positive impact into future long-term migration, increasing its probability.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

It is a well known fact that qualified health professionals generally migrate to high-income, developed regions. Nevertheless, the perceptions of this immigrant skilled health workforce on access to opportunities or feeling discriminated in their host countries, have not yet been explored or adequately addressed.

This work has focused on the perceptions of immigrant psychiatry trainees in several European countries about their views on having equal access to opportunities as natives or feeling discriminated.

A semi-structured 61-item questionnaire was circulated by National Coordinators in each country and was completed by 2281 psychiatric trainees from 33 European countries between year 2013 and 2014. Data has been analysed using the Software Package for Social Sciences for Windows v. 22.0 (SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL).

In these findings, more than one in ten psychiatry trainees across Europe were immigrants, with top host countries being Switzerland, Sweden and UK. Satisfaction with migration and the perception of having equal opportunities as the native trainees varied depending on the host country they migrated to. More than one-third of the trainees felt discriminated, not having the same opportunities as the local colleagues, especially concerning the work opportunities and the academic conditions. Still, nearly two-thirds considered having the same opportunities than natives.

A high number of immigrant psychiatry trainees subjectively feels they do not have the same opportunities as local trainees. Further research about factual and perceived discrimination by immigrant workforce should be done.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Migration of medical professionals has a global impact on healthcare and services, including on mental health. Exploring the reasons for migration and why psychiatric trainees consider to migrate to certain countries is therefore crucial to understand the decision-making process related to migration of psychiatric trainees as well as of future specialists.

The aims of this Brain Drain Survey, was to research which countries most trainees in Europe migrate to (host countries) and for which reasons trainees choose to migrate to these countries (“pull factors”).

In a multicenter, cross-sectional study, data was collected in 33 countries. As part of the survey, all participants responded to a questionnaire exploring trainees’ experiences and attitudes towards migration.

Our results showed that Sweden, Switzerland and the UK were all significant net hosts. The percentage of immigrants varied between these countries. One of the main contributors as a “pull” factor was unsurprisingly, salary. It is notable that all three-host countries were within the highest wage brackets within our survey.

Psychiatric trainees tend to migrate to countries with higher income.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The interest for academic background and investigational activities are essential in psychiatry. Several European-wide, early career psychiatrists-driven studies have been carried out completely independently, leading to high quality publications, where all the co-authors are junior researchers.

To further elaborate the European federation of psychiatric trainees (EFPT) platform of promoting the experience of collaborative work and research lead by psychiatric trainees in different countries all over Europe.

A review of EFPT collaborative trainee-led research initiatives since the beginning with the focus on published articles and their impact on psychiatric community in Europe.

Main topics of trainee research are related to postgraduate psychiatric training schemes in Europe raising awareness on enhancing and harmonizing standards of psychiatric education and training across Europe. Other research topics are related to treatment strategies while being a psychiatric in Europe, to migration and “brain drain” phenomenon of psychiatric trainees in Europe, to access to information in psychiatric training.

International cooperation's in research should be promoted since the training. Joining professional associations provides opportunities for participating in research activities and establishing networks with other colleagues. Collaboration between psychiatric trainees ensures a more effective use of individual talents and a quick way of accessing and transferring new knowledge and research expertise. Moreover it provides a supportive framework for multi-center research.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.