Shift-Work Schedule Intervention for Extending Restart Breaks after Consecutive Night Shifts: A Non-randomized Controlled Cross-Over Study

More knowledge is required to determine the optimal shiftwork schedule to reduce the harmful effects of short restart breaks between shifts. This 5-month intervention study aimed to examine the effectiveness of extended restart breaks from 31 h to 55 h after consecutive night shifts by considering t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2022-11, Vol.19 (22), p.15042
Main Authors: Kubo, Tomohide, Matsumoto, Shun, Izawa, Shuhei, Ikeda, Hiroki, Nishimura, Yuki, Kawakami, Sayaka, Tamaki, Masako, Masuda, Sanae
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bedding
C-reactive protein
Circadian rhythm
Circadian rhythms
Cross-Over Studies
Employees
Exhaustion
Fatigue
Humans
Intervention
Night shifts
Nurses
Occupational safety
Schedules
Sensation
Shift work
Shift Work Schedule
Sleep
Work Schedule Tolerance
Working conditions
Working hours
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:More knowledge is required to determine the optimal shiftwork schedule to reduce the harmful effects of short restart breaks between shifts. This 5-month intervention study aimed to examine the effectiveness of extended restart breaks from 31 h to 55 h after consecutive night shifts by considering the characteristics of the circadian rhythm to mitigate fatigue and sleep among 30 shift-working nurses. Subjective and objective variables, such as vital exhaustion, distress, hair cortisol, salivary C-reactive protein, and sleep mattress sensor sensation, were repeatedly measured to examine the differences between the intervention and control conditions. Two-way (condition × time) multilevel analyses showed significantly lower levels of vital exhaustion and distress in the intervention condition ( = 0.005 and = 0.004, respectively). However, the expected benefit of the intervention was not observed in objectively measured variables. These findings suggested that an extended restart break after consecutive night shifts can moderately decrease occupational fatigue and stress.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph192215042