The effect of long working hours/shift work on physicians’ health and patient safety: a literature review
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Hsu, Chen-Man
Abstract
Under the multiple pressure such as Taiwan’s health insurance regulations, medical disputes, work risks and long working hours, the physicians have been forced to leave the medical industry, especially those in the Emergency and Critical department. To shed light on the impact of work shifts and long working hours on the mental and physical health of physicians, the present study reviewed 45 experimental studies from the pubmed and medline database. Among the 45 studies, 13 indicated that work shifts and long working hours may affect the physicians’ nerve function, while increasing the rate of medical errors and accidents; 4 studies investigated the impact of work shifts on the physicians’ cardiovascular function; 2 examined the physicians’ immune function after night shifts; 11 discussed the working stress, and other 15 explored the sleep disorders, fatigue and emotions in relation to work shifts. Despite the fact that the solutions to the physicians'' fatigue have been proposed, the effectiveness needs further investigations. Based on the literature reviews, it was found that the implications drawn from the empirical studies were applicabile for future clinical evaluation and health care system reform. In this way, Taiwan healthcare workers could ensure their own health while improving the quality of medical care.
Subjects
physicians'
work shifts
long working hours
working stress
fatigue
burnout
patients' safety
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-101-R99847033-1.pdf
Size
23.32 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):205a69a51457f3b409848a76decd0d62