• Hedwig Schroeck, Michaela A Whitty, Pablo Martinez-Camblor, Stefana Voicu, Barbara K Burian, and Andreas H Taenzer.
• Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA; Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, USA. Electronic address: hedwig.schroeck@dartmouth.edu.
• Br J Anaesth. 2023 Sep 1; 131 (3): 598606598-606.

BackgroundAnaesthesia care outside of the standard operating room (OR) can be challenging. This prospective matched case-pair study describes the difference in anaesthesia clinicians' perception of safety, workload, anxiety, and stress in two settings by comparing similar neurosurgical procedures performed in either the OR or a remote hybrid room with intraoperative MRI (MRI-OR).MethodsA visual numeric scale for safety perception and validated instruments for workload, anxiety, and stress were administered to enrolled anaesthesia clinicians after induction of anaesthesia and at the end of eligible cases. The difference in outcomes reported by the same clinician for unique pairs of similar operations performed in both settings (OR vs MRI-OR) was compared using the Student t-test with the general bootstrap algorithm to address the presence of clusters.ResultsOver 15 months, 37 clinicians provided data for 53 case pairs. Working in the remote MRI-OR vs OR was associated with lower perceived safety (7.3 [2.0] vs 8.8 [0.9]; P<0.001), higher scores in the workload subdomains effort and frustration (41.6 [24.1] vs 31.3 [21.6]; P=0.006 and 32.4 [22.9] vs 20.7 [17.2]; P=0.002, respectively), and higher anxiety (33.6 [10.1] vs 28.4 [9.2]; P=0.003) at the end of the case. Stress was rated higher in the MRI-OR after induction of anaesthesia (26.5 [15.5] vs 20.9 [13.4]; P=0.006). Effect sizes (Cohen's D) were moderate to good.ConclusionsAnaesthesia clinicians reported lower perceived safety and higher workload, anxiety, and stress in a remote MRI-OR compared with a standard OR. Improving non-standard work settings should benefit clinician well-being and patient safety.Copyright © 2023 British Journal of Anaesthesia. All rights reserved.

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