Reducing screentime leads to lowered stress for health care workers

While electronic medical record software and other digital tools can make aspects of health care delivery easier, they can be a double-edged sword for clinicians.

One reason: these apps make it tempting to work even during time off, contributing to stress and burnout.

Karsten Bartels, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan and his colleagues designed a simple intervention to see whether a reduction in use of work-related apps on personal devices would lead to increased wellbeing for health care workers.

The study recruited more than 800 nurses, residents, attending physicians and other clinicians and split them into two groups.

Before a scheduled weekend off, one group was counseled to turn on automatic responses to email, reduce overall screen time or delete work apps from their personal smartphones while the other group received no intervention.

The study team found that while, unsurprisingly, everyone saw a reduction in stress after a weekend off, those who received counseling experienced double the reduction in reported stress.

Additionally, those who received counseling had a 1-hour reduction in overall screen time compared to the non-intervention group.

The team observed the biggest stress reductions in participants who uninstalled work apps from their phones.

Says Bartels, “Most of us appreciate the benefits of putting the phone down and being present in the moment, especially during time off. This study proves that point. Our next step will be to design institutional interventions that facilitate deliberate disengagement from work during leisure time, and then test if these translate to less stress, higher engagement, and ultimately improved productivity and innovation at work."

Paper cited: “Reducing work-related screen-time in healthcare workers during leisure time (REDUCE SCREEN) – a randomized controlled trial,” Journal of Medical Systems. DOI: 10.1007/s10916-026-02338-9