ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
This article is part of the Research TopicNavigating Environmental Hazards in the Workplace: Impacts and InterventionsView all 33 articles
Impact of Different Anesthesia Subspecialties on Anxiety Levels and Sleep Quality among Anesthesiologists: A Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Anesthesiology, Mianyang Central Hospital, Mianyang, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background Anesthesiologists face high risks of occupational burnout, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Significant subspecialization within the field suggests different specialties may constitute distinct stressors, but whether this leads to systematic variations in mental health outcomes remains unclear. Objective This study aimed to investigate the association between different anesthesia subspecialties and the levels of anxiety, depression, and sleep quality among anesthesiologists Methods A multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted. Eighty-five anesthesiologists from four tertiary Grade A general hospitals completed the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaires. Retrospective work data were extracted from departmental systems. Statistical analyses included one-way ANOVA, Tukey's HSD post-hoc tests, and multiple linear regression controlling for key covariates. Results Significant differences were found in GAD-7 (F=4.32, p<0.01), PHQ-9 (F=4.98, p<0.001), and PSQI (F=5.18, p<0.001) scores across subspecialties. Multiple linear regression, adjusting for weekly overtime, monthly night shifts, age, experience, and gender, confirmed that the primary subspecialty was independently associated with anxiety (β=0.35, p=0.003), depression (β=0.38, p=0.001), and poor sleep quality (β=0.41, p<0.001). Conclusion: The anesthesia subspecialties in which an anesthesiologist works is independently associated with the risk of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. These findings suggest that targeted support strategies should be considered for anesthesiologists in high-stress subspecialties such as cardiothoracic and pediatric anesthesia.
Keywords: Anesthesiologists, Occupational stress, Anxiety, sleep quality, Subspecialty
Received: 27 Oct 2025; Accepted: 26 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Song, Wen, Guo, He, Peng and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jun Li
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.