Doctors on long night-shifts prescribe fewer painkillers than their daytime colleagues — and depleted empathy reserves appear to be the main culprit, a study suggests.

 According to US and Israeli researchers sleep deprivation affects how doctors respond to a patient’s pain.

And this may explain why they are less likely to prescribe analgesics on night shifts,

“This study demonstrated that night shift work is an important and previously unrecognised source of bias in pain management, likely stemming from impaired perception of pain,” they said.