JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Accurate documentation of work hours is fundamental for the formation of labor policies. Previous studies have shown inconsistencies in the accuracy of self-reported work hours.

Objective:

This study aims to estimate physicians’ recall bias of work hours with a mobile app, and to examine the association between the recall bias and physicians’ work hours.

Methods:

We quantified recall bias by calculating the differences between the app-recorded and self-reported work hours of the previous week and the penultimate week. We recruited 18 physicians to install the “Staff Hours” app, which automatically recorded GPS-defined work hours for 2 months, contributing 1068 person-days. We examined the association between work hours and two recall bias indicators: (1) the difference between self-reported and app-recorded work hours (D), and (2) the percentage of days for which work hours were not precisely recalled during interviews (NR).

Results:

App-recorded work hours correlated highly with self-reported counterparts (r = 0.86–0.88, P<.001). Self-reported work hours were significantly lower than app-records consistently, by -8.97 ± 8.60 hours (D1) and -6.48 ± 8.29 (D2) hours for the previous week and the penultimate week, respectively (P<.001). The recall bias indicator D1 was significantly correlated with work hours in the previous week (r = -0.410, P = .013), but the correlation with the penultimate week was not significant (r = -0.119, P = .476). NR2 (38.6%) was significantly higher than NR1 (16.0%), and NR2 was significantly correlated with work hours of the penultimate week (r = 0.489, P = .002)

Conclusions:

Our study identified the existence of recall bias of work hours, the extent to which the recall was biased, and the influence of work hours on recall bias.