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The effects of acute sleep deprivation on performance
of medical residents in a regional hospital: prospective study
SK Mak, P Spurgeon
Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, Kwong Wah Hospital, 25 Waterloo
Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
OBJECTIVE. To evaluate the effects of acute sleep
deprivation on the level of perceived occupational stress and cognitive
functioning in a group of medical residents.
DESIGN. Prospective study.
SETTING. Regional hospital, Hong Kong.
PARTICIPANTS. Twenty-one residents who had regular
in-hospital on-call duties.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES. From January to April 2002,
participants were asked to complete the Raven Advanced Progressive
Matrices (sets I and II) and Occupational Stress Inventory–Revised
tests at the beginning of an on-call day. They then repeated the
tests towards the end of their on-call duties on their next on-call
day, at a mean (standard deviation) interval of 8.9 (2.3) days.
Occupational Stress Inventory–Revised test scores were transformed
into T-scores to provide
information about an individual’s scores relative to the scores
of participants in a normative sample.
RESULTS. The group slept for a mean (standard deviation)
of 2.9 (1.0) hours during 29.3 (3.8) hours of on-call duties. Before
the on-call duties, participants’ mean T-scores for the Occupational
Stress Inventory–Revised test ranged from
50.6 to 54.5 for the Occupational Role Questionnaire, 52.0 to 57.0
for the Personal Strain Questionnaire, and 37.3 to 52.3 for the
Personal Resources Questionnaire. After on-call duties, apart from
a slight increase in Role Insufficiency
T-scores (50.6 [5.9] versus 52.1 [6.0]; P=0.044), there was no significant
change in all other scales of the Occupational Stress Inventory–Revised
test. The scores of the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices test
remained stable after
the on-call duties (11.3 [1.2] versus 11.5 [0.8], P=0.129 for set
I; 29.9 [5.5] versus 30.2 [6.3], P=0.2 for set II).
CONCLUSION. Acute sleep deprivation among medical
residents was not associated with any significant changes in both
cognitive functioning and level of stress perceived.
Hong Kong Med J 2004;10:14-20
Key words: Cognition; Internship and residency;
Sleep deprivation; Stress
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