Effects of Acute Sleep Deprivation Resulting from Night Shift Work on Young Doctors

Abstract

<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> To evaluate sleep deprivation and its effects on young physicians in relation to concentration capacity and psychomotor performance.<br /><strong>Material and Methods:</strong> Eighteen physicians aged 26 - 33 years were divided into 2 groups: non-sleep deprived group (with no night work) and sleep deprived group (minimum 12 hour of night work/week). We applied Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to screen the presence of sleep pathology and Epworth Sleepiness Scale to evaluate subjective daytime sleepiness; we used actigraphy and sleep diary to assess sleep hygiene and standard sleep-wake cycles. To demonstrate the effects of sleep deprivation, we applied Toulouse-Piéron’s test (concentration test) and a battery of three reaction time tasks after the night duty.<br /><strong>Results:</strong> Sleep deprived group had higher daytime sleepiness on Epworth Sleepiness Scale (p &lt; 0.05) and during week sleep<br />deprivation was higher (p &lt; 0.010). The mean duration of sleep during the period of night duty was 184.2 minutes to sleep deprived group and 397.7 minutes to non-sleep deprived group (p &lt; 0.001). In the Toulouse-Piéron´s test, the sleep deprived group had more omissions (p &lt; 0.05) with a poorer result in concentration (p &lt; 0.05). Psychomotor tests that evaluated response to simple stimuli revealed longer response latency (p &lt; 0.05) and more errors (p &lt; 0.05) in Sleep deprived group; in reaction to instruction test the sleep<br />deprived group showed worse perfection index (p &lt; 0.05); in the fine movements test there was no statistically significant difference between the groups.<br /><strong>Discussion: </strong>Acute sleep deprivation resulting from nocturnal work in medical professions is associated with a reduction in attention and concentration and delayed response to stimuli. This may compromise patient care as well as the physician’s health and quality of life.<br /><strong>Conclusion: </strong>It is essential to study the effects of acute sleep deprivation on the cognitive abilities and performance of health<br />professionals.</p>