• Norihisa Yasuda, Chihiro Shingu, Hiroshi Miyagawa, Masakazu Mori, Takaaki Kitano, and Takayuki Noguchi.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Fuculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita.
• Masui. 2008 Jun 1; 57 (6): 764-7.

BackgroundIn recent years, workload for a doctor has been increasing, because hospital managers are trying to improve the efficiency of management. As a result, many doctors are expected to work harder. We studied how anesthesiologists are stressed by their work, especially on working overnight, using the Profile of Mood States(POMS).MethodsThirty six anesthesiologists working in our hospital are studied. We asked them to answer POMS questionnaires three times at 8:00 before overnight work, 8:00 and 17:00 the following day.ResultsMean working time for overnight job is 32 +/- 4.3 hours and mean sleeping time is 3.0 +/- 1.3 hours (mean +/- SD). The Profile of Mood States has six subscores (depression, fatigue, vigor, confusion, tension/anxiety, and anger). After working overnight, fatigue and confusion scores were significantly increased and vigor scores were significantly decreased, compared with the sores at 8.00 before overnight work.ConclusionsWe studied anesthesiologist's stress of working overnight, using the Profile of Mood States. As a result, after overnight work, fatigue, confusion and vigor scores were significantly exacerbated. We speculate that the anesthesiologists are building up so much stress when they work overnight as on call.

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