Abstract
Purpose :
Burnout has been a widely studied topic recently due to its association with physician depression, higher rates of medical errors, and poorer safety outcomes. It is prevalent among ophthalmology residents and surveys suggest that sleep and physical activity may influence burnout. We conducted a prospective cohort study to observe sleep and activity patterns in ophthalmology residents, with the hypothesis that less sleep and more physical activity is associated with higher burnout.
Methods :
Activity and sleep data of 14 ophthalmology residents at the University of Washington were collected using wrist actigraphers from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. Residents also completed Maslach Burnout Inventory surveys six times throughout the year to assess burnout. Sleep and activity data were associated with nightly call encounter records. T-tests were used to compare differences in sleep and activity while on call and not on call. Pearson correlation was used to associate average nightly sleep while on call, nightly sleep while not on call, weekly physical activity, daily sedentary time, and daily number of steps with average Maslach Burnout Inventory scores.
Results :
Residents wore wrist actigraphers on average for 214 ± 102 days and 138 ± 126 nights during the study period. There was a significant difference between sleep on call and off call (p=0.002), with sleep averaging 3.5 ± 1.3 hours on primary call, 5.5 ± 0.5 hours on backup call, and 6.6 ± 1.1 hours when not on call. There were no differences in average number of steps or sedentary time while residents were on call versus not on call. Lower average nightly sleep on call was associated with higher emotional exhaustion (r=-0.75, p<0.001) and higher depersonalization (r=-0.51, p=0.049). Longer average daily sedentary time was also associated with higher depersonalization (r = 0.55, p=0.040). However, average nightly sleep while not on call, weekly physical activity, and daily steps were not associated with any subset of burnout.
Conclusions :
In this study, residents who slept less on call and were more sedentary were more likely to experience burnout. This suggests that interventions aimed at improving resident sleep and activity may decrease burnout and improve wellness.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.