2039 'Its seriously affecting our mental health: the impact of emergency department crowding on the well-being of emergency medicine trainees

Conclusion Between October 2022 and March 2023, we conducted 13 focus groups involving 67 EM Trainees in the United Kingdom. We identified three themes. The first, Risky Business, addresses trainees’ anxieties over patient safety and professional risk: ‘it [crowding] makes our department unsafe’; ‘[crowding] forcibly changes us to change our take on risk.’ The Pressure Cooker, considers how crowding feels in real time for trainees referring to both physical/sensory overload and daily frustration: ‘it feels out of control. Because you’ve got patients in, well, everywhere.’ Finally, The Longer We Hold it, the Heavier it Gets, refers to the longer-term repercussions of crowding: ‘just to emphasise how bad it [a constantly crowded department] makes me feel, just generally, and it bleeds into the rest of your life’; it’s [crowding] seriously affecting our mental health.’ In conclusion, in this large, qualitative study, we identified crowding as having deleterious short- and long-term effects on the well-being of EM trainees. This adds further impetus to pleas from the EM community to policymakers to address the known contributors to ED crowding. Abstract 2039 Figure 1How crowding feels as an EM trainee – themes and representative quotes. P = participant, T = theme
Source: Emergency Medicine Journal - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Emergency Medicine (General) Source Type: research