A recent study funded by ARC Yorkshire & Humber has revealed that emergency physicians who better tolerate clinical uncertainty experience significantly better mental well-being and lower burnout rates, though the impact on patient outcomes remains unclear.
The research, conducted across five Yorkshire emergency departments in the UK from May 2021 to February 2022, examined 39 emergency doctors and 384 patient encounters. The study focused on how doctors handle uncertainty in emergency settings, where they frequently make critical decisions with limited patient information and time constraints.
This study comes at a crucial time when healthcare worker burnout is a growing concern, suggesting that helping doctors better manage clinical uncertainty could be a valuable approach to supporting physician mental health in emergency departments.
Authors: Luke Budworth, Brad Wilson, Joanna Sutton-Klein, Subhashis Basu, Colin O’Keeffe, Suzanne M Mason, Andrew Ang, Sally Anne-Wilson, Kevin Reynard, Susan Croft, Anoop D Shah , Sakarias Bank, Mark Conner, Rebecca Lawton
Read here for Dr Luke Budworth blog What is ‘uncertainty tolerance’ and how can we measure it?
