Léa PASCAL, PhD Student, biostatistician, RESHAPE
Measurement of sleep, stress, and physical activity of the surgeon using wearable sensors: a scoping review
The performance of individual surgeon is key for a successful surgery. This performance could fluctuate according to surgeon’s physiological parameters, in particular sleep, stress, and physical activity. The use of wearable sensors has the advantage of providing objective measurement and being non-invasive for surgeons to collect their individual parameters continuously. However, surgeons’ sleep has mainly been studied based on subjective evaluation or binary contextual variables (e.g. operation after a night shift or not), and very few articles have investigated their physical activity. Stress of the surgeon has been more widely studied, with subjective measures or invasive methods like salivary cortisol samples, or using wearables sensors mainly focused on Heart Rate Variability.
The objectives, methodologies, and settings used in the literature are heterogeneous and this field of research is still developing, with gaps to fill. Consequently, our scoping review aims to explore the use of wearable sensors in quantitative studies to measure sleep, stress or physical activity of the surgeon as a determinant or as an outcome, including attending surgeons or surgical trainees.
