The Importance of Fatigue Management for Healthcare Workers from Islamic Perspective

Introduction: Fatigue is common among healthcare workers (HCWs). Long continuous duty hours, sleep loss with minimal recuperation and shift work are among work-related factors contributing to fatigue. Being fatigued will impair physical, cognitive, and emotional function. Substantially, it will impact the occupational and patient safety along with quality of healthcare delivery. Nevertheless, there are still paucity of Islamic perspective on the importance of fatigue management for HCWs.Objectives: Our aim is to outline the Islamic perspective of fatigue management for HCWs.Methods: Review of literature in relevance to fatigue among HCWs were carried out. Document analysis from Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) references including literature from Maqasid Syariah (the Objective of Syariah) and Qawaid Fiqhiyyah (Islamic legal maxims) perspective. Interviews with expert from both Islamic scholars and clinicians are conducted.Results: Our findings provide Islamic perspective on the importance of fatigue manageme nt for healthcare workers. The consequences of fatigue such as slowed reaction time, reduced vigilance, reduced decision-making ability, poor judgment, distraction during complex task and loss of awareness in critical situations raise the issue on the integrity of patient safety and occupational safety. This is in contrary with the principle of Maqasid Syariah which highly emphasize protection of life (hifz an-Nafs) and intellect (hifz ‘Aql) of both group of HCWs and patients. While Qawaid Fiqhiyyah strongly against inflicting harm to themselves nor bring harm to others (La darar wa la dirar); which serve as basis to support this fatigue manageme nt framework in a holistic manner.Conclusion: This study may serve as an added perspective in the angle of Islamic view on the importance of fatigue management for healthcare workers.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Supplementary Issue: 2019 Page: 37