Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Introduction: Physician well-being is crucial and has the potential to impact patient safety. Many physicians across different stages of their careers experience stress, burnout, and/or decreased sleep. These factors can negatively affect physician well-being and performance and contribute to medical errors. The purpose of this study is to further understand physician well-being by examining a single cohort for patterns of sleep, burnout, and perceived stress across gender, training level, and specialty. Materials and methods: A cohort of 32 practicing military physicians ranging from first-year residents to experienced attendings continuously wore an actigraphy watch for a duration of at least 5 days to capture baseline sleep patterns. On the last day of data collection, participants completed a self-reported assessment of their daytime sleepiness using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), a two-item burnout scale adapted from the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and a 10-item perceived stress questionnaire. Data for the entire cohort were descriptively analyzed. Results: The cohort had a mean sleep duration of 6.69 hours across the 5 days, with a maximum mean sleep duration of 7.90 hours, and a minimum mean sleep duration of 5.69 hours per day. Analysis stratified by gender and level of training revealed an average sleep duration of at least 6 hours across these groups. Overall, the cohort reported low perceived stress levels, low daytime sleepiness, and low burnout. Conclusion: The cohort of physicians examined in the present study did not show signs of significant sleep deprivation, feelings of perceived stress, or burnout. This may be due to military culture and the structure of military training facilities that emphasize duty hour regulations. In addition, these findings may be related to the fact that military health professionals are salaried, as opposed to being on a fee-for-service schedule, and military facilities offer well-being programs.

Highlights

  • Physician well-being is crucial and has the potential to impact patient safety

  • On the last day of data collection, participants completed a self-reported assessment of their daytime sleepiness using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), a two-item burnout scale adapted from the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and a 10-item perceived stress questionnaire

  • The cohort of physicians examined in the present study did not show signs of significant sleep deprivation, feelings of perceived stress, or burnout

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Summary

Introduction

Physician well-being is crucial and has the potential to impact patient safety. Many physicians across different stages of their careers experience stress, burnout, and/or decreased sleep. Physicians’ inherently challenging jobs and social and family responsibilities can all contribute to diminished sleep, increased stress, job burnout, and medical errors (Raj, 2016; Dewey, Sico, and Moeller, 2019; Lockley et al, 2007; Baldwin and Daugherty 2004) These effects may not be homogenous across all physicians: prior studies reveal differences in sleep deprivation, stress, and burnout across both gender and level of training (e.g., intern, resident, attending), with women and those at lower levels of training experiencing poorer sleep and worse stress and burnout (Raj, 2016; Dewey, Sico and Moeller, 2019; Dimou, Eckelbarger, and Riall, 2016). This study further explores sleep patterns by examining a cohort of physicians across services at a military medical hospital

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