Doctors appear to be no more immune than the general population to drug addiction, alcoholism or severe mental illness, according to a new study.

Dr. G. Douglas Talbott, head of the Impaired Physicians Program of the Medical Association of Georgia, found that more than 10 percent of physicians will be affected by these problems.

"There's no question any longer that we're talking about one in eight physicians at some time having either Alcohol or drug addiction or a primary psychiatric disorder during his or her career," he told a recent American Medical Association meeting on physician impairment.

A spokeswoman for the Illinois State Medical Society, which has run an impaired-doctor program for a decade, said yesterday the incidence of the problems in doctors is comparable to that of the population at large.

Talbott said his program found that white men at an average age of 45 who were experiencing marital problems were the most vulnerable.

Talbott, quoted in the current issue of Physician's Management, said Alcohol abuse was the largest problem, affecting 65 percent of the doctors who entered the Georgia program to help impaired physicians.

Doctors also abused the narcotic pain killer meperidine, sold as Demerol and other brands, in 27 percent of the cases, and the tranquilizer diazepam, sold as Valium and other brands, in 17 percent of the cases.

Talbott said signals that a doctor is becoming impaired include inappropriate prescribing of large narcotic doses, frequent bathroom relief, frequent absenteeism and lateness to work, personality changes and changes in routine.

Dr. David Canavan, head of the Medical Society of New Jersey's program for impaired doctors, said partners of impaired doctors, chiefs of hospital staffs and hospital administrators refer doctors to treatment programs in 52 percent of the cases in his state. Nineteen percent of the doctors referred themselves. In Georgia, 42 percent didn't seek help until they had legal difficulties or jeopardized their licenses.

Canavan said that self-denial of problems - part of what he called the `MDeity syndrome" - is a major barrier to helping impaired physicians.

He said senility is another form of impairment, affecting more than 4 percent of doctors in his state's program, that must be addressed. He maintained that medicine "needs to establish `old doctor' homes."

The Illinois impaired-doctor program gets about one call per week about troubled doctors.