Home|Journals|Articles by Year|Audio Abstracts
 

Original Article

SJEMed. 2021; 2(3): 244-249


The impacts of working 12-hour shifts in the emergency Department on physicians' health, social life, and decision-making: a cross-sectional study

Yahia Akeely, Mutaz Mousa Alharbi, Swaid Raza Saulat, Albaraa Mehdar, Naif Misfer Alzhrany, Fahad M. Samarkandy, Gary M. Vilke, Saleh Alesa.




Abstract

Background: Currently, the demand for emergency medicine physicians is much higher than the available workforce. To overcome this issue, some institutions have increased their working hours. No previous study in Saudi Arabia addresses this issue and its impacts on physicians.
Aim of the study: this study evaluates physicians health, social life, and decision making in 12 hours shifts compared against regular 8 hours.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in various cities and hospitals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using a questionnaire that surveyed 173 emergency physicians working in different hospitals across Saudi Arabia.
Results: There were many similarities and differences between the participants who worked 12-hour shifts and those who worked 8-hour shifts. The most significant differences were that those who worked 12-hour shifts were more likely to be male than female and more likely to be married than unmarried. In addition, the 12-hour working physicians had more nonworking partners than the 8-hour group. Furthermore, they had less time for socialization with friends. Changes in blood sugar levels and headache were more common in the 12-hour group. Both groups had a similar incidence of COVID-19, physical illnesses, and the use of sedative medications. The two groups showed almost the same decision-making abilities. On the other hand, only 8.1% of those working 12-hour shifts wanted to continue working 12-hour shifts, and 69.1% in the 8-hour group wanted to continue working 8-hour shifts.
Conclusion: Both 8- and 12-hour shifts appear feasible and safe.

Key words: emergency physician, 12-hour shift, physician performance, shift's length, working hours.






Full-text options


Share this Article


Online Article Submission
• ejmanager.com




ejPort - eJManager.com
Refer & Earn
JournalList
About BiblioMed
License Information
Terms & Conditions
Privacy Policy
Contact Us

The articles in Bibliomed are open access articles licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.