Implications for practice and research

• Efforts to improve teamworking may lead to reduced long-term fatigue in staff.

• However, careful attention to the size of workloads remains an essential part of managing staff well-being.

• Further studies could determine whether the quality of teamwork predicts fatigue prospectively.

• Interventions that target improved teamworking, such as simulation training with a focus on team communication, could usefully be evaluated with regard to impact on staff fatigue and resilience.

Context

Internationally, there has been growing concern about fatigue and burnout in health professionals given their association with increased staff sickness and turnover, poorer quality of care and the greater likelihood of error. …