When those who sleep little are the doctors

Doctors who during some seasons work more than 80 hours a week. Whose working hours can extend more than 30 hours in a row. That they have a very low quality of sleep or that they sleep less than 6 hours a day. These are some of the data brought to light by a recent investigation carried out in Argentina, which reflect the reality of the country but can be extrapolated to many other nations.

The study was carried out by a team from the Biomedical Research Institute (BIOMED), dependent on the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and the Argentine Catholic University (UCA), in Argentina.

The objective of the research was to analyze the rest and sleep conditions in hospital health professionals.

“Our group studies sleep and biological rhythms in populations at risk, that is, groups that are more susceptible to sleep disorders due to their daily life. Among them, the resident doctors, who, with their extremely long working hours, put their health and well-being as well as that of their patients at risk”, explains, in dialogue with the CTyS-UNLaM Agency, Malena Mul Fedele, a researcher at the Chronophysiology Laboratory at BIOMED.

The working group, led by Dr. Daniel Vigo, analyzed and surveyed health professionals who perform shifts in different hospitals in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Buenos Aires and one in Entre Ríos. In the eyes of experts, poor rest conditions and the quality of sleep hours have a significant impact on health.

“Our body is prepared to rest at night and do activities during the day. Unfortunately, when we live ‘upside down’, it does not only bring short-term consequences, such as fatigue or irritability. If this also extends over months or years, the risk of contracting diseases such as diabetes and different types of cancer increases considerably,” explains Mul Fedele.

Members of the research team. (Photo: Courtesy of the researchers)

To this scenario are added, in addition, impacts at a psychological and social level. “In the first case, there are changes in the affective sphere, such as fluctuations in mood, anxiety, depression; and, at a social level, changes are observed in the way of interacting with family, friends and colleagues”, deepens the specialist.

One piece of information is enough to account for how lack of sleep impacts on a physical level and on the possibility of suffering -or causing- accidents: when a person is awake for more than 17 hours in a row, the symptoms that can be perceived are the same as those of a person with 0.5 percent alcohol in their blood. “The problem with this scenario is that while there are pipettes to detect alcohol, we don’t have any tools that detect that level of fatigue.”

For the research team, one of the next objectives, in addition to deepening the analysis of the data obtained, is to begin to offer scientific evidence to discuss public policies and legislation regarding the working hours of medical residents.

“It’s not just about enunciating how lack of sleep affects health, which may even be ‘common sense’. The challenge is to demonstrate this entire scenario with validated scientific information so that they begin to pay attention to us and begin to debate and seek a solution to this problem – Mul Fedele insists. We have been working and dialoguing with companies that have employees with rotating shifts and with hospitals, to carry out interventions and to help improve the health and well-being of these people.”

The CONICET researcher also adds that, in the specific case of medical residents, the scenario of not sleeping well is due to the lack of opportunities to do so, since it is a population fully aware of the importance of sleep. “In the surveys, we could see that they sleep as much as they can sleep. The problem is that if they work excessively and if they work a lot of continuous hours, the opportunities for rest are few. We are working on the development of new methods to monitor sleep disorders and the disruption of circadian rhythms due to long shifts”, she concludes. (Source: Nicolás Camargo Lescano (CTyS-UNLaM Agency))