Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Feb 26;20(5):4180.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph20054180.

Insomnia-A Systematic Review and Comparison of Medical Resident's Average Off-Call Sleep Times

Eve Ardizzone  1 , Emily Lerchbaumer  1 , Johannes C Heinzel  1 , Natalie Winter  2 , Cosima Prahm  1 , Jonas Kolbenschlag  1 , Adrien Daigeler  1 , Henrik Lauer  1
Affiliations

Insomnia-A Systematic Review and Comparison of Medical Resident's Average Off-Call Sleep Times

Eve Ardizzone et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Sleep deprivation is known to have serious consequences, including a decrease in performance, attention and neurocognitive function. It seems common knowledge that medical residents are routinely sleep deprived, yet there is little objective research recording their average sleep times. To discern whether residents may be suffering from the abovementioned side effects, this review aimed to analyze their average sleep times. Thirty papers recording the average sleep time of medical residents were found via a literature search using the key words "resident" and "sleep". An analysis of the mean sleep times cited therein revealed a range of sleep from 4.2 to 8.6 h per night, the median being 6.2 h. A sub-analysis of papers from the USA showed barely any significant differences in sleep time between the specialties, but the mean sleep times were below 7 h. The only significant difference (p = 0.039) was between the mean sleep times of pediatric and urology residents, with the former achieving less sleep. The comparison of methods for data collection showed no significant difference in the sleep times collected. The results of this analysis imply that residents are regularly sleep deprived and may therefore suffer from the abovementioned consequences.

Keywords: residency; sleep; sleep deprivation; sleep times; systematic review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart depicting the systematic literature search and selection process in chronological order.
Figure 2
Figure 2
A pie chart analysis of all 30 papers analyzed [28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57] by country of their origin.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A pie chart analyzing all 30 papers [28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57] regarding the number of papers which provided data for each specialty. Multiple: the data collected were not divided by specialty.
Figure 4
Figure 4
A Box plot of 24 papers [34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57] displaying the mean sleep time for each specialty. The circle represents an outlier.
Figure 5
Figure 5
A bar chart analyzing 14 papers [44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57]. The figure displays the mean sleep time of residents practicing in the USA by specialty. Multiple: the data collected were not divided by specialty. Significant differences in sleep times are marked with * (p < 0.05).
Figure 6
Figure 6
A boxplot using data from 14 papers [44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57] comparing the mean sleep times recorded either by actigraphy or questionnaire. The circles represent outliers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Watson N.F., Badr M.S., Belenky G., Bliwise D.L., Buxton O., Buysse D., Dinges D.F., Gangwisch J., Grandner M.A., Kushida C., et al. Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society. Sleep. 2015;38:843–844. doi: 10.5665/sleep.4716. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sheehan C.M., Frochen S., Walsemann K., Ailshire J.A. Are U.S. adults reporting less sleep?: Findings from sleep duration trends in the National Health Interview Survey, 2004–2017. Sleep. 2019;42:zsy221. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsy221. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mansukhani M.P., Kolla B., Surani S., Varon J., Ramar K. Sleep deprivation in resident physicians, work hour limitations, and related outcomes: A systematic review of the literature. Postgrad. Med. 2012;124:241–249. doi: 10.3810/pgm.2012.07.2583. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Besedovsky L., Lange T., Haack M. The Sleep-Immune Crosstalk in Health and Disease. Physiol. Rev. 2019;99:1325–1380. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00010.2018. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Huizinga C.R.H., de Kam M., Stockmann H., van Gerven J., Cohen A., van der Bogt K.E.A. Evaluating Fitness to Perform in Surgical Residents after Night Shifts and Alcohol Intoxication: The development of a “Fit-to-Perform” test. J. Surg. Educ. 2018;75:968–977. doi: 10.1016/j.jsurg.2018.01.010. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types