The effects of chronic partial sleep deprivation on cognitive functions of medical residents.

• Main Authors: Habibolah Khazaie, Masoud Tahmasian, Mohammad R Ghadami, Hooman Safaei, Hamed Ekhtiari, Sara Samadzadeh, David C Schwebel, Michael B Russo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tehran University of Medical Sciences 2010-06-01
• Series: Iranian Journal of Psychiatry
• Subjects: Cognition; Executive function; Internship and residency; Sleep deprivation
• Online Access: https://ijps.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijps/article/view/370
• ISSN: 1735-4587; 2008-2215

Because of on-call responsibilities, many medical residents are subjected to chronic partial sleep deprivation, a form of sleep restriction whereby individuals have chronic patterns of insufficient sleep. It is unclear whether deterioration in cognitive processing skills due to chronic partial sleep deprivation among medical residents would influence educational exposure or patient safety.Twenty-six medical residents were recruited to participate in the study. Participants wore an Actigraph over a period of 5 consecutive days and nights so their sleep pattern could be recorded. Thirteen participants worked on services that forced chronic partial sleep deprivation ( .05).THESE RESULTS MAY HAVE EMERGED FOR SEVERAL POSSIBLE REASONS: (a) chronic partial sleep deprivation may have a lesser impact on prefrontal cortex function than on other cognitive functions; (b) fairly modest chronic sleep restriction may be less harmful than acute and more significant sleep restriction; or (c) our research may have suffered from poor statistical power. Future research is recommended.