The AMBITIOUS Study Design and Rationale: Ambulatory Blood Pressure in Taiwanese Occupational Healthcare Staff.
BACKGROUND
Sudden death is a rare but real threat to hospital-based physicians and surgeons. The association between sudden death and blood pressure (BP) fluctuations in healthcare providers has not been documented. We hypothesized that work-shift loading may lead to variable BP surges in hospital-based healthcare staff, which might contribute to their development of cardiovascular disease.


METHODS
Our intention is to ask 150 healthcare staff (doctors, medical technicians, and nurses) working in the coronary catheterization lab, intensive care unit, and the medical wards, respectively, to volunteer for the study. Their changes in BP would automatically be recorded every 60 minutes on an ambulatory BP monitoring machine for 24 hours during a normal workday. All events and activities would be recorded in a diary, which would allow us to coordinate BP changes with the work being done during the shift. All cardiovascular outcomes would be followed-up for a five-year duration.


CONCLUSIONS
We herein report the rationale and design of this first multicenter trial in Taiwan to explore the BP behavior associated with long work shifts in healthy hospital-based healthcare providers.


BACKGROUND
Ambulatory blood pressure; Health-care staff; Occupation; Work shift.
Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan;
Li-Tan
LT
Yang
Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan;
Po-Wei
PW
Chen
Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung;
Tsung-Hsien
TH
Lin
Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei;
Kuang-Hsing
KH
Chiang
Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei;
Chun-Ming
CM
Shih
Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua;
Ming-Chia
MC
Hsieh
E-Da Hospital, Kaohsiung;
Wei-Kung
WK
Tseng
Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei;
Hung-I
HI
Yeh
Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan; ; Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Ping-Yen
PY
Liu