Effect of sleep deprivation on the performance of surgical residents.
Surgical residents were tested under sleep-deprived and nonsleep-deprived conditions. Three performance domains were tested: factual recall, the ability to concentrate, and manual dexterity. Sleep deprivation was defined as less than 3 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. A randomized, repeated measures design was used. Split-plot analysis of variances was used to analyze the mean scores, and it revealed that there were no significant differences in performance in the sleep-deprived condition compared with performance in the nonsleep-deprived condition in any of the three domains tested. Moderate sleep deprivation appeared to be well tolerated by the surgical residents studied in this investigation.
Reznick
R K
RK
Department of Surgery, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield 62708.
Folse
J R
JR
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D011897:Random Allocation; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000502:physiology*