Stress and Anxiety Affect Residents' Performance

The Impact of Stress in Residents' Performance

Being an anesthesiologist implies huge dedication and both physical and psychological efforts. None has ever studied the impact of a working day on anxiety, perceived stress levels, physiological data, and executive functions.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Stress; Stress Disorder; Work Related Stress
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: eSense device

Detailed Description

During a working day, trainees will have their physiological and psychological data recorded before starting their clinical activity and after them. Electrodermal activity with the eSense device, Executive functions through the TOL-R and all the questionnaires and scales will be sampled at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day the same procedure will be applied again (exclusion for PSS-10 scale, STAY-Y trait anxiety and GAD-7) eSense and TOL-R, are useful tools to understand sympathetic activity and executive functions. The galvanometer it is the gold standard to measure EDA; i.e. electrodermal activity, which is a pure sympathetic index, while Tower of London it is the gold standard to assess planning, monitoring and programming skills, both data are supposed to be heavily involved in an anesthesiologist trainee during the all day.

The aims of the study are to evaluate executive functions at the start and at the end of a working day and to understand theirs relationship with anxiety, perceived stress levels and physiological changes in sympathetic activity.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 40

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Italy
  • Padova, Italy, 35126
    • Clinica Odontoiatrica

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Anesthesiologists residents

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Being an anesthesiologist residents
• Written informed consent obtained

Exclusion Criteria:

• Psychiatric disorders
• Neurological disorders
• Suffering from high blood pressure

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Differences in executive functions overtime	Evaluating executive functions at the start and at the end of a working day using the Tower of London test (TOL-R) (scoring 0 (worst score)-30 (better score))	baseline and immediately after intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Differences in dermal activity during working day	Evaluating potential differences in electrodermal activity overtime using microsiemens, counting number of stress response	baseline and immediately after intervention
Assess the general level of anxiety	Measuring levels of anxiety using the generalized anxiety disorder-7 item (GAD-7) (minimum 0, maximum score 21)	baseline and immediately after intervention
General level of anxiety	Measuring the general levels of anxiety with the Stait-trait anxiety inventory (STAI-Y1-2) (1 point=not at all/almost never anxiety; 2=somewhat/sometimes; 3=moderately so/often) and 4= very much so/almost always)	baseline and immediately after intervention
Evaluating the general levels of perceived stress levels	Evaluation of the general levels of perceived stress levels using the perceived stress score (PSS)-10 scale (0 (minimum level of anxiety)-10 (maximum level of anxiety))	baseline and immediately after intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Padova

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 1, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 7, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 30, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): January 11, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 29, 2024
• Last Verified: December 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Stress, Psychological; Occupational Diseases; Occupational Stress
• Other Study ID Numbers: Stress study

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Nope

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No