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Sleepiness in Medical Intensive Care Unit Residents.
Chest. 2008 Nov 18;
Authors: Reddy R, Guntupalli K, Alapat P, Surani S, Casturi L, Subramanian S
Background and Methods Sleepiness in medical residents has crucial implications for the safety of both patients and residents. Measures to improve this have primarily included ACGME mandated reduction in work hours in residency programs. The impact of these work hour limitations has not been consistent. The purpose of this study was to provide an objective assessment of daytime sleepiness in medical residents working in the medical ICUs. Sleep times for 2 days/nights prior to call and on the day/night of on-call were assessed by actigraphy and sleep diaries. On-call and post-call measurements of residents' sleepiness were measured both objectively, by means of a modified MSLT (2 nap sessions), as well as subjectively, by Stanford Sleepiness Scale. Results Our data showed that despite an average sleep time of 7.15 h on nights leading to the call, Mean Sleep Latency (MSL) on the on-call day was 9 +/- 4.4 min compared to the MSL on the post call day of 4.8 +/-4.1 min; p < 0.001. On the post-call day 14 residents (70%) had MSL values < 5 min suggesting severe sleepiness as compared to 6 (30%) on the on-call day. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that residents working in the ICU despite reductions in work hours demonstrate severe degree of sleepiness post-call.
PMID: 19017897 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]