SMART: Stress Management and Resilience Training for emergency physicians. Protocol for a pilot study with intervention. (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Background In recent years, the factors of stress, anxiety and work-life balance received more attention. More specifically, the determinants of professional well-being, impact of occupational risks and traumatic events, stress and type D personality, and work stress related problems in physicians in COVID-19 Times were addressed in physicians and more specifically in emergency physicians. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) program on stress, anxiety and resilience as well as the professional quality of life of hospital physicians and in particular emergency physicians. Methods This is a pre-post intervention study, pilot study with intervention. Setup / Participants: The participants (hospital physicians/emergency physicians) are recruited through internal and external networks such as the specialist medicine trainees and social media of the own professional group of physicians and physician specialists in training. A combination of several validated interventional and coping strategies will be used to achieve an improvement of personal factors such as stress reduction, anxiety reduction, resilience, quality of professional life of the hospital physicians/emergency physicians. This study also measures additional data such as heart rate variability and physical activity based on the number of daily steps. Discussion Some aspects of this intervention study have already been initiated in previous studies, whereby we aim to achieve even more efficient and structural improvement with a combination of various validated methodologies and coping strategies to address these factors (stress reduction, anxiety reduction, resilience increase, quality of life increase) of hospital/emergency physicians. The abovementioned study will also include process measures such as heart rate variability and physical activity based on the number of daily steps. With this she responds to new trends in chronic stress research. Further studies should be undertaken to confirm the results of this study to identify determinants that can be the object of adequate interventions to improve professional well-being in these physicians.

The impact of rest breaks on subjective fatigue in physicians of the General Hospital of Vienna

Summary Aims Medical doctors are affected by high levels of occupational burnout. Work organization such as sufficient rest breaks can decrease stress and fatigue; however, rest breaks are often skipped under high workload and time pressure. The present study sought to investigate the effect of self-determined rest breaks on acute and daily levels of fatigue in physicians of the General Hospital of Vienna. Methods Rest breaks and fatigue were recorded throughout day shifts over a time span of 4 weeks with a mobile assessment device. A total of 12 physicians of a university clinic participated in the study. Data were analyzed using generalized estimating equations. Results Analyses were based on a total of 115 workdays including 93 rest breaks and 800 fatigue assessments. Physicians took an average of 0.81 rest breaks per day. Fatigue was lower in the 30 min after the break than in the hour before the break; however, the number of rest breaks did not affect the increase of fatigue during shifts. Conclusion Self-determined rest breaks were effective in reducing acute fatigue in hospital physicians during work. The failure to find an effect on the increase of work-related fatigue may be due to the infrequency of rest breaks in hospital physicians.

Perceptions, views and practices regarding antibiotic prescribing and stewardship among hospital physicians in Jakarta, Indonesia

ObjectivesAntibiotic overuse is one of the main drivers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), especially in low and middle-income countries. This study aimed to gain an understanding of perceptions, views, and practices regarding AMR, antibiotic prescribing, and stewardship (AMS) among hospital physicians in Jakarta, Indonesia.Designcross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire-based survey, with descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify distinct underlying constructs in the dataset, and multivariable linear regression of factor scores to analyse physician subgroups.SettingSix public and private general hospitals in Jakarta in 2019.Participants1007 of 1896 (53.1% response rate) antibiotic prescribing physicians.ResultsEFA identified six latent factors (overall Crohnbach’s α=0.85): awareness of AMS activities; awareness of AMS purpose; views regarding rational antibiotic prescribing; confidence in antibiotic prescribing decisions; perception of AMR as a significant problem; and immediate actions to contain AMR. Physicians acknowledged the significance of AMR and contributing factors, rational antibiotic prescribing, and purpose and usefulness of AMS. However, this conflicted with reported suboptimal local hospital practices, such as room cleaning, hand hygiene and staff education, and views regarding antibiotic decision-making. These included insufficiently applying AMS principles and utilising microbiology, lack of confidence in prescribing decisions, and defensive prescribing due to pervasive diagnostic uncertainty, fear of patient deterioration or because patients insisted. Physicians’ factor scores differed across hospitals, departments, work experience and medical hierarchy.ConclusionsAMS implementation in Indonesian hospitals is challenged by institutional, contextual and diagnostic vulnerabilities, resulting in externalising AMR instead of recognising it as a local problem. Appropriate recognition of the contextual determinants of antibiotic prescribing decision-making will be critical to change physicians’ attitudes and develop context-specific AMS interventions.Strengths and limitations of this studyThe self-developed questionnaire in this study identified a relevant set of attributes through a factor analysis optimization process, with adequate content, face and construct validity and internal reliability. This study adds important value in the absence of adequately validated instruments regarding antimicrobial resistance and stewardship, with particular applicability for LMIC.This study had a large, varied respondent sample and high response rate among physicians at six public and private hospitals in Jakarta, Indonesia, and identified differences between physicians across hospitals, departments, work experience and medical hierarchy, which can guide priority-setting and tailoring of stewardship interventions.However, non-participation and the convenient hospital sample could have introduced selection bias, and the data are not necessarily representative for Jakarta or Indonesia.Factor analysis is based on using a “heuristic”, which leaves room to more than one interpretation of the same data and cannot identify causality.

‘Professional-supportive’ versus ‘economic-operational’ management: the relationship between leadership style and hospital physicians’ organisational climate

Background Health systems across the world have implemented reforms that call for a reconsideration of the role of management in hospitals, which is increasingly seen as important for performance. These reorganisation efforts of the hospitals have challenged and supplemented traditional profession-based management with more complex systems of management inspired by the business sector. Whereas there is emerging evidence on how medical professionals in their role as leaders and managers adapt to the new institutional logics of the health care sector with increasing demands for efficiency and budgetary discipline, no previous studies have investigated whether leaders’ emphasis on clinical or financial priorities is related to how hospital physicians’ view their working situation. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine the relationship between leadership style and hospital physicians’ organisational climate. Methods We utilised data from a survey among 3000 Norwegian hospital physicians from 2016. The analysis used three additive indexes as dependent variables to reflect various aspects of the organisational climate: social climate, innovation climate and engagement at the workplace. The variables reflecting leadership style were based on an item in the survey asking the respondents to rate the leadership qualities of their proximate leaders (department chair) on 11 specific dimensions. We used factor analysis to identify two types of leadership styles: a traditional profession-based leadership style that emphasises the promotion of professional standards and quality in patient treatment, and a leadership style that reflects the emerging management philosophy with focus on economic administration and budgetary control. Controlling for demographic background, leader role, foreign medical exam and specialty, the empirical model was estimated via multivariate regression. Results The results documented a clear relationship between leadership style and organisational climate: a ‘professional-supportive’ leadership style is associated with better social climate, innovation climate and engagement at the workplace, while an ‘economic-operational’ leadership style is associated with a poorer social climate. Conclusions The cross-sectional study design makes it impossible to draw inferences about direction of causality and causal pathways. However, the positive relationship between professional-supportive leadership and organisational climate is a matter, which should be seriously considered regardless of direction of causality.

Surgical management of obesity: what you need to know

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic and official figures demonstrate a rising prevalence, both in the UK and globally. Increasingly, there is a recognised place for surgical intervention in carefully selected patients, but there is limited understanding of the pathway and process among non-specialist clinicians. This article summarises the available guidelines and literature on the surgical management of obesity for hospital physicians, surgeons and GPs. The focus is on appropriate referral criteria, key bariatric procedures, postoperative management and, most importantly, the complications of surgery and how to recognise them.

Reality Meets Belief: A Mixed Methods Study on Character Strengths and Well-Being of Hospital Physicians

Positive psychology deals with factors that make life most worth living and focuses on enhancing individual potentials. Particularly, character strengths can positively contribute to well-being and work-related health, bearing a promising potential for professions, such as physicians, who are at risk for burnout or mental illnesses. This study aims to identify beneficial character strengths by examining the quantitative and qualitative data. In a cross-sectional multi-method study, 218 hospital physicians completed an online survey assessing their character strengths and their general and work-related well-being, comprising thriving, work engagement, and burnout dimensions (outcome variables). Quantitative data were analyzed for the total sample and by tertiary split. Additionally, interview-gathered opinions of four resident physicians and four medical specialist educators were collected to expand the perspective on which character strengths might be beneficial for the well-being of the resident physicians. The highest significant correlations between character strengths and outcome variables were found for hope and thriving (r = 0.67), zest, and work engagement (r = 0.67) as well as emotional exhaustion (r = −0.47), perseverance/leadership and depersonalization (r = −0.27), bravery, and reduced personal accomplishment (r = −0.39). Tertiary splits revealed that some correlations were not consistent across the entire scale continuum, for example, creativity was only significantly correlated with comparatively high levels of thriving (r = 0.28) or forgiveness with comparatively high levels of depersonalization (r = −0.34). Humility, social intelligence, and teamwork showed predominantly low correlations with all outcome variables (r = −0.17 − 0.34), although humility was stated by all interviewed medical specialist educators to be the most relevant for the well-being at work, and the latter two by three resident physicians, respectively. Different perspectives resulting from quantitative and qualitative data in terms of beneficial character strengths for work-related well-being may be driven by different work experiences, professional understandings, generational beliefs, or social expectations. Some significant correlations between character strengths and well-being outcomes varied depending on low, medium, or high outcomes. This raises questions about suitable work-related well-being interventions, as simple single intervention approaches (one intervention fits all) may not work for the respective outcome levels. These new findings warrant further research on how to foster the well-being of resident physicians at work.