Pulse Rate Variability in Emergency Physicians During Shifts: Pilot Cross-Sectional Study

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Occupational Health
• Emergency Medicine

Background:

• Physician burnout is a significant issue, especially in emergency medicine.
• Wearable photoplethysmography (PPG) offers a potential method for objective stress measurement.
• The utility of PPG biosensors for studying emergency physicians (EP) during clinical practice is unproven.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility of collecting PPG data from EPs during shifts.
• To evaluate the quality of the acquired PPG data.
• To analyze pulse rate variability (PRV) metrics over an academic year.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-one EPs wore PPG biosensors during 9-hour shifts.
• Data were collected in the first and fourth quarters of an academic year.
• Standard pulse rate (PR) and PRV metrics were calculated and compared.

Main Results:

• Usable data were obtained during 8.54% of total recording time.
• No significant differences in PR or PRV metrics were observed between the first and fourth quarters.
• Power estimates for all tested metrics exceeded 0.90.

Conclusions:

• While operationally feasible, PPG biosensors did not provide reliable stress metrics for EPs in this study.
• The current application of PPG may have limited utility for physician training and wellness.
• Further investigation is required to explore potential applications in other domains.