# Validating a Tool to Measure Pharmacist Fatigue: Implications for the Quadruple Aim

> **NIH AHRQ R36** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 2021 · $42,765

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
 Medication safety is a critical public health issue. Community retail pharmacists are the last line of
defense for assuring safe medication use in the outpatient setting. However, pharmacists are experiencing
unsafe levels of stress and excessive demands within the workplace. Pharmacists are crucial resources for
health information as the most accessible health care professional. Especially in rural communities with limited
access to primary care providers, pharmacists are critical for the provision of quality care. Further, 72% of
community pharmacists reported their workload levels as high or excessively high which negatively affected
the quality of care they were able to provide to patients. This is consistent with the Quadruple Aim which states
that supporting the well-being of the health care professional is a prerequisite to assuring safe and high-quality
health care. Occupational fatigue is a characteristic of excessive workload that inhibits workers’ abilities to
function at normal capacity. Research in physicians and nurses has demonstrated that occupational fatigue
negatively impacts patient, employee, and organizational outcomes. However, fatigue has been dangerously
overlooked in pharmacists, who are experiencing excessive-work related demands. Systems based
interventions to reduce fatigue must be developed to mitigate patient harm. A context-specific instrument
needs to be validated first in order to develop and test interventions to reduce fatigue.
 This project will validate a previously developed pharmacist occupational fatigue instrument, utilizing
the Instrument Development and Construct Validation framework. This explanatory mixed methods study has
the following aims: (1) Examine convergent validity between two measures of occupational fatigue in
pharmacists using a commercially available actigraphy device (Fatigue Science Readiband) and previously
developed fatigue survey instrument, (2) Examine discriminant validity between a measure of occupational
fatigue and a measure of burnout using a previously developed fatigue survey instrument and validated
burnout index, and (3) Explore factors related to occupational fatigue in pharmacists. This study will be
conducted by recruiting 60 community retail pharmacists across the state of Wisconsin. Pharmacists will wear
the Fatigue Science Readiband, which will capture physiologic fatigue data continuously for 14-days.
Participants will also be given the previously developed fatigue survey instrument, Maslach Burnout Inventory,
and participate in a 30-minute interview after the 14-day data collection period.
 The ultimate goal of this project is to validate an instrument that will be utilized to develop and test
interventions to reduce fatigue in community pharmacists, ultimately reducing patient harm. This project will be
led by a pharmacist researcher uniquely trained in human factors engineering theories and methods. The study
leverages a strong multidiscip...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10294420
- **Project number:** 1R36HS027766-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **Principal Investigator:** Taylor Lee Watterson
- **Activity code:** R36 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $42,765
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-07-01 → 2022-05-15

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10294420

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10294420, Validating a Tool to Measure Pharmacist Fatigue: Implications for the Quadruple Aim (1R36HS027766-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10294420. Licensed CC0.

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