Doctors, their wellbeing, and their stress

Interest in stress has broadened as organisations have finally accepted that stress costs them vast amounts of money-through absence, litigation, and the fact that unhappy, tense, tired, or anxious doctors do not produce quality care. 3 Indeed, stressed doctors may make considerably more errors than...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ 2003-03, Vol.326 (7391), p.670-671
Main Author: Firth-Cozens, Jenny
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Counseling
Health
Humans
Occupational Diseases - prevention & control
Occupational Diseases - psychology
Physician Impairment
Physicians
Psychotherapy
Sleep
Stress
Stress, Psychological - prevention & control
Stress, Psychological - psychology
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Summary:Interest in stress has broadened as organisations have finally accepted that stress costs them vast amounts of money-through absence, litigation, and the fact that unhappy, tense, tired, or anxious doctors do not produce quality care. 3 Indeed, stressed doctors may make considerably more errors than those whose sense of well being is high. 4 This is particularly true if they have insufficient hours of sleep; 5 however, we now know that working long hours in itself is not the cause of problems provided a doctor feels well supported. Providing teamwork and leadership training to clinicians would be an excellent beginning, and making quite simple changes to the way work is organised-such as having a 12 month house officer rotation in one hospital rather than two-appears to affect stress levels dramatically. 8 There can be primary prevention for individuals too through training, career counselling, and educating about error.
ISSN:0959-8138
0959-8146
1468-5833
1756-1833
DOI:10.1136/bmj.326.7391.670