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Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work

Research has shown that shiftworkers experience poor sleep and high levels of fatigue. Although considerable research has been performed on fatigue within many shift-work occupations, very little has been done with emergency physicians (EPs). This qualitative study was conducted with the goal of gai...

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Autores principales: Klinefelter, Zachary, Hirsh, Emily L., Britt, Thomas W., George, Caroline L., Sulzbach, Margaret, Fowler, Lauren A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123702/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37092431
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep5020019
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author Klinefelter, Zachary
Hirsh, Emily L.
Britt, Thomas W.
George, Caroline L.
Sulzbach, Margaret
Fowler, Lauren A.
author_facet Klinefelter, Zachary
Hirsh, Emily L.
Britt, Thomas W.
George, Caroline L.
Sulzbach, Margaret
Fowler, Lauren A.
author_sort Klinefelter, Zachary
collection PubMed
description Research has shown that shiftworkers experience poor sleep and high levels of fatigue. Although considerable research has been performed on fatigue within many shift-work occupations, very little has been done with emergency physicians (EPs). This qualitative study was conducted with the goal of gaining insight into EPs’ perceptions of fatigue at work. Twenty EPs from an academic medical center participated in virtual interviews, with nine open-ended questions asked in a semi-structured interview format. Twelve common topics with four main themes emerged from the interviews. Three of these common themes included sources of fatigue (including both work- and home-related sources), consequences of fatigue (including impacts on individuals and performance), and prevention and mitigation strategies to cope with fatigue. The fourth main theme was the belief in the inevitability of fatigue due to high cognitive load, emotionally taxing work experiences, work unpredictability, and the 24/7 shift-work nature of emergency medicine. EPs’ experiences with fatigue are consistent with but extend those of other types of shiftworkers. Our findings suggest that EPs tend to incorporate the inevitability of fatigue at work into their identity as EPs and experience a sense of learned helplessness as a result, suggesting areas for future interventions.
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spelling pubmed-101237022023-04-25 Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work Klinefelter, Zachary Hirsh, Emily L. Britt, Thomas W. George, Caroline L. Sulzbach, Margaret Fowler, Lauren A. Clocks Sleep Article Research has shown that shiftworkers experience poor sleep and high levels of fatigue. Although considerable research has been performed on fatigue within many shift-work occupations, very little has been done with emergency physicians (EPs). This qualitative study was conducted with the goal of gaining insight into EPs’ perceptions of fatigue at work. Twenty EPs from an academic medical center participated in virtual interviews, with nine open-ended questions asked in a semi-structured interview format. Twelve common topics with four main themes emerged from the interviews. Three of these common themes included sources of fatigue (including both work- and home-related sources), consequences of fatigue (including impacts on individuals and performance), and prevention and mitigation strategies to cope with fatigue. The fourth main theme was the belief in the inevitability of fatigue due to high cognitive load, emotionally taxing work experiences, work unpredictability, and the 24/7 shift-work nature of emergency medicine. EPs’ experiences with fatigue are consistent with but extend those of other types of shiftworkers. Our findings suggest that EPs tend to incorporate the inevitability of fatigue at work into their identity as EPs and experience a sense of learned helplessness as a result, suggesting areas for future interventions. MDPI 2023-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC10123702/ /pubmed/37092431 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep5020019 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Klinefelter, Zachary
Hirsh, Emily L.
Britt, Thomas W.
George, Caroline L.
Sulzbach, Margaret
Fowler, Lauren A.
Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work
title Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work
title_full Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work
title_fullStr Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work
title_full_unstemmed Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work
title_short Shift Happens: Emergency Physician Perspectives on Fatigue and Shift Work
title_sort shift happens: emergency physician perspectives on fatigue and shift work
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123702/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37092431
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep5020019
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