Funded Projects

Professional burnout is increasing in prevalence and scope affecting physicians as early as the first year of medical school. Several studies have identified an association between sleep health and physician burnout. However, the individual dimensions of sleep associated with burnout need elucidation. This pilot study will test the feasibility of a study protocol intended to identify sleep patterns associated with wellness in medical students and resident physicians-in-training in a single academic center. The study will enroll 50 resident physicians or medical students from the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and three affiliated primary care residency programs (Pediatrics, Medicine-Pediatrics and Internal Medicine). Participants will be identified by ownership of a personal wrist-actigraphy device or a willingness to wear a wrist-actigraphy device (FitBitâ„¢) for purposes of the study. Participants will complete a manual sleep log while wearing personal actigraphy devices for two weeks over three clinical rotations with varying work schedules: outpatient, inpatient and inpatient with night shift and/or critical care. Sleep hygiene and wellness will be assessed via online surveys completed at the end of each two-week period. Pilot study end-points include correlations between actigraphy measurement and manual sleep logs and superiority of two-week data over one-week sleep data. Participant compliance with data collection and qualitative feedback will be collected to inform final protocol design to optimize completion. We are requesting $5,000 to support the cost of software to allow extraction of actigraphy data and the cost of 50 personal actigraphy devices (FitBitâ„¢ Inspire) to be provided to study participants.