The TIRED-UK Study V4
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Trainee-led evaluation of the need for Intershift Recovery among Emergency Department doctors in the United Kingdom
IRAS ID
262048
Contact name
Laura Cottey
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 31 days
Research summary
Emergency departments (ED) provide patient care 24 hours a day all year round. This requires staff to work long consecutive shifts that can result in fatigue. It is recognised that fatigue negatively impacts productivity, exacerbates the risk of human error, and could be associated with occupational burnout. From a patient perspective staff with excess fatigue could led to reduced experience of care and increased patient safety concerns. Fatigue may be measured by a variety of approaches including psychometric testing, assessment of reaction speeds, and personal diaries. However, these methods are impractical for providing rapid assessment within a working population and have limited validity. With rates of burnout as high as 60% in ED doctors there is a need for effective measurements of fatigue in order to produce evidence-based solutions.
The ‘need for recovery’ (NFR) scale is a validated questionnaire originally developed in the Netherlands, to assess how work demands affect inter-shift recovery. It features eleven items requiring a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, takes only a few minutes to complete, and shows high acceptability amongst surveyed populations. An online survey using the NFR has been trialled by this research group in a single centre ED and was shown to be an acceptable means of measuring staff fatigue.
This study is a survey aiming to answer the question ‘What is the baseline need for recovery (NFR) score among ED doctors in the UK and which factors influence NFR?’. It will achieve this by conducting a national study to characterise the baseline NFR score in ED doctors across the UK and determine whether there are any associations and differences between NFR scores and demographic, occupational, personal wellbeing, rota characteristics, or geographical region variables. The survey will be open for the period of one month and will take participants approximately 15 minutes to complete.
REC name
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REC reference
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