The health of healthcare: Emergency department physician well-being

Abstract

Introduction: Physician health and well-being is an important issue that ultimately affects job performance. We compared the self-reported incidence of known medical issues, physical and mental health symptoms, and health behaviors of Emergency Physicians (EPs) with the general public in the United States. Methods: Questions selected from a national survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) about public health trends were distributed to via Facebook to a private group of 12,917 EPs. Responses were compared between EPs and the general population using Chi-square tests of independence. Results: Our results demonstrated that EPs suffer less from chronic diseases, especially those related to the cardiopulmonary system; however, they suff er from a higher incidence of musculoskeletal pain and infectious disease complaints. EPs also exhibit higher rates of mental health symptoms, sleep-related complications, and alcohol consumption. Conclusions: Awareness, education, and advocacy may help improve physician health and ultimately job performance.

Keywords

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.); emergency service
• hospital; health promotion; physicians; preventive medicine; occupational medicine; social media
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
• emergency service
• hospital
• health promotion
• physicians
• preventive medicine
• occupational medicine
• social media