Physicians who wore a smartwatch with access to various health metrics such as step count and heart rate experienced reduced burnout and greater resilience compared with those who did not, according to a report published yesterday in JAMA Network Open.
Liselotte N. Dyrbye, M.D., of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic recruited 184 physicians from their two respective institutions, including 83 residents or fellows. Of these, 92 were randomized to immediately receive a smartwatch that tracked heart rate, physical activity, respiratory rate, stress levels, and sleep patterns; the other 92 physicians received a smartwatch after six months.
All participants completed electronic surveys at baseline and every three months for a year to assess burnout, resilience, quality of life, depressive symptoms, stress, and sleepiness.
At six months, 35 of 85 physicians (41.2%) wearing the smartwatch reported burnout compared with 46 of 91 (50.5%) in the control arm. Average resilience scores at six months (measured with the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, which goes from 0 to 40) were 31.9 and 29.5 among physicians in the intervention and control arms, respectively. Adjusting for demographics, medical specialty, and work hours, the odds of burnout were reduced by 54% among physicians wearing a smartwatch compared with those who did not.
“Based on previously observed associations, the 54.0% reduction in the odds of overall burnout at six months observed in this study could lead to meaningfully lower rates of self-reported medical errors, malpractice litigation, and turnover and lost productivity, along with reduced associated costs to health systems and society,” the researchers wrote.
However, no statistically significant difference was seen in quality of life, depressive symptoms, stress, or sleepiness between the trial arms at six months, suggesting that wearing a smartwatch and having access to its collected data does not lead to global improvements in well-being. “Rather, wearing a smartwatch shows promise as an individual strategy to mitigate burnout and improve resilience, and it should be coupled with other individual and organizational efforts to address well-being more broadly,” Dyrbye and colleagues wrote.
For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “The Growing Problem of Administrative Burdens.”
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