Dear Editor-in-Chief
China is facing a furious fight to the sleep problem of people in this country. As a specific group, Chinese Medical Personnel should have been given urgent attention. Medical system reform is still a challenge for the Chinese government. At the same time of protecting the legal rights and interests of the medical staff, how to keep their mentally and physically fit during their long career will be an important topic.
According to the 2015 China Sleep Quality Index, not only has the number of Chinese suffering from insomnia increased, but also they are going to bed later and later. In today’s China, it is still under population pressure, lack of medical workers and the enormous imbalance in medical resource distribution is obvious. The medical personnel’s professional sense of honor declined and the doctor-patient relationship becomes more estranged.
China Sleep Quality Index published last year by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association reported more than 30% of Chinese residents failed the sleep quality and the medical personnel posted the lowest scores (1). Chinese Psychiatrist Association also has conducted a survey in 2007, involved 2759 doctors from 30 hospitals, aged between 30 ∼ 40 years old, which showed that 1914 doctors had sleep disorders (2). The Chinese front-line clinical medical staff often works overtime and has night shifts frequently. Chinese Analysis Report of National Health Services Survey in 2008 shows that medical workers averaging 50.6 hours a week, far more than 40 hours a week of the legal work time, and some staff even have 6 night shifts per month on average (3).
Frequent shift work forces medical staff to change their normal schedules, interferes with biological rhythms, social activities and family life and reduces efficiency, increases the probability of errors, easily leads to the occurrence of metabolic syndrome. In South Korea (4), evening chronotype was independently associated with diabetes, metabolic syndrome in an epidemiological sense. The medical staff aged over 40 from a hospital the prevalence rate of metabolic syndrome was 13.75% (5). 9.17% in 1996 medical staff medical personnel suffer metabolic syndrome (6).
Medical system reform is still a challenge for the Chinese government. At the same time of protecting the legal rights and interests of the medical staff, how to keep their mentally and physically fit during their long career will be an important topic.
Acknowledgements
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.
References
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