THURSDAY, April 2, 2026 (NewsDay News) — Nearly one-third of U.S. family medicine residents report spending three or more hours per day after office hours on electronic ambulatory health records (EHRs), according to a study published in the March issue of Family Medicine.Academic medicine.
Wendy B. Barr, MD, of Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues conducted a survey of 9,653 US family medicine residents to determine the relationship between resident sleep time (three hours or more per night in the ambulatory EHR) and fatigue, professional satisfaction.
The researchers found that 32.3% reported high pajama time, which was more common among the elderly, women, medical professionals, and international medical residents. When controlling for characteristics, higher pajama time was associated with lower test scores (odds ratio (OR), 1.28), lower odds of career satisfaction (OR, 0.61), higher odds of curriculum satisfaction (OR, 0.62), and higher odds of burnout (OR, 1.61).
“The longer you’re in the clinic, the more pajama time you seem to have,” Barr said in a statement. “This tells us that there is a systemic aspect to this.”
