Studies show that night shift doctors are less likely to prescribe painkillers because they are less likely to 'sympathize with the patient's pain.'



Managing 'pain' is one of the key challenges in modern medicine and is also the main reason why adults decide to visit a medical institution. However, a paper published in the Proceedings of the

American Academy of Sciences reported that doctors approaching the end of long night shifts tended to underestimate patient pain and are less likely to prescribe painkillers. I did.

Physicians prescribe fewer analgesics during night shifts than day shifts | PNAS
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2200047119

New study finds doctors prescribe fewer paink | EurekAlert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957137

Sleep deprivation influences physician percep | Eurek Alert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957118

Night Shift Changes How Doctors Give Pain Relief, Study Reveals
https://www.sciencealert.com/night-shift-sleep-deprivation-makes-physicians-less-likely-to-prescribe-pain-meds

Almost 60% of adults in the United States report that they 'have experienced physical pain in the last three months,' and proper pain relief is important to the health and well-being of patients. However, as long as the doctor who decides to prescribe painkillers is also a human being, the criteria for prescribing painkillers to patients may change due to some external factor.

So an interdisciplinary research team led by the Hebrew University of Israel studied the question, 'Is there a difference in painkiller prescribing between doctors who are nearing the end of a long night shift and doctors who are just beginning to shift?'



First, the research team asked 31 full-time Israeli doctors who had just started the shift and 36 full-time doctors who had just finished the 26-hour night shift, 'female patients complaining of headaches' and 'male patients complaining of back pain.' I had you read the clinical scenario about. The doctor then answered questions about the patient's pain and how likely it was to prescribe painkillers to the patient.

Experiments have shown that doctors who have just completed a long night shift are less sympathetic to the patient's pain than those who have just started the day, and may prescribe painkillers to relieve the pain. Turned out to be low.

In addition, the research team analyzed electronic medical records for more than 13,482 patients who complained of headaches and back pain who visited hospitals in the United States and Israel from 2013 to 2020. In all datasets, night shift doctors are 20-30% less likely to prescribe painkillers compared to daytime shifts, and painkiller prescriptions are also generally recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). It was less than the amount. David Gozal, a pediatrician at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, said that the fact that doctors prescribing painkillers during night shifts is less than the WHO guidelines is not over-prescribing by daytime doctors, but during night shifts. It points out that it indicates that doctors are prescribing less painkillers.

'The doctors on the night shift are tired, so it's hard to sympathize with the patient's pain,' said Shoham Choshen-Hillel, a professor at the Hebrew University. 'Night shifts are an important previously unrecognized factor in managing patient pain,' said Anat Perry, a psychologist at the Hebrew University. 'We strive to provide the best care for our patients.' Even medical professionals are susceptible to night shifts. '



We already know that a variety of factors, including race and gender, influence painkiller prescribing, but the research team says they can add 'night shifts' to it. He argued that more structured pain management guidelines should be put in place to reduce the effects of night shifts on analgesic prescribing.

in Science, Posted by log1h_ik