Summary of clinical performance results
1. Three non-randomised comparative studies failed to demonstrate any significant
clinical differences between the sleep-deprived and non sleep-deprived groups. One
study found that when residents operated on a not on-call day, complications were
significantly more likely to occur when the resident had been on-call the day before.
2. One case series study found being on-call every other night was associated with
subjectively reported significantly greater levels of fatigue and stress, less operating
room participation and less overall satisfaction, when compared with the every fourth
night with cross-cover schedule, but not with the frequency of reported errors.