Sleep and Work in ICU Physicians During a Randomized Trial of Nighttime Intensivist Staffing*

Objectives: To compare sleep, work hours, and behavioral alertness in faculty and fellows during a randomized trial of nighttime in-hospital intensivist staffing compared with a standard daytime intensivist model. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: Medical ICU of a tertiary care academic medical center during a randomized controlled trial of in-hospital nighttime intensivist staffing. Patients: Twenty faculty and 13 fellows assigned to rotations in the medical ICU during 2012. Interventions: As part of the parent study, there was weekly randomization of staffing model, stratified by 2-week faculty rotation. During the standard staffing model, there were in-hospital residents, with a fellow and faculty member available at nighttime by phone. In the intervention, there were in-hospital residents with an in-hospital nighttime intensivist. Fellows and faculty completed diaries detailing their sleep, work, and well-being; wore actigraphs; and performed psychomotor vigilance testing daily. Measurements and Main Results: Daily sleep time (mean hours [SD]) was increased for fellows and faculty in the intervention versus control (6.7 [0.3] vs 6.0 [0.2]; p
Source: Critical Care Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Feature Articles Source Type: research