Documents fatigue assessment 30 results

"Objectives Working from home (WfH) is a promising practice that may enable employees to successfully and sustainably combine work and private life. Yet, not every employer facilitates WfH and not every employee has similar needs concerning the practice. The current study aims to examine the association of a WfH mismatch with work–home interference (WHI) and fatigue.

Methods Data on WfH, WHI, and fatigue of a quasi-representative sample of 2374 Dutch employees in 2012/13 and a follow-up measurement one year later were used. Cross-sectional and longitudinal regression analyses were conducted to investigate the cross-sectional and temporal associations between WfH mismatch on the one hand and (changes in) time-based and strain-based WHI and fatigue on the other hand.

Results In the cross-sectional analyses, WfH mismatch was significantly associated with higher time-based WHI (B=0.13), strain-based WHI (B=0.17) and more fatigue (B=0.32). WfH mismatch was not associated with changes in these outcomes after one year of follow-up.

Conclusions A tailored WfH organizational policy, in which employees' need for working from home is taken into account, may be a fruitful approach to utilize WfH as a way for employees to successfully and sustainably combine work and private life to its full potential."

"Cet article propose d'étudier les conditions de travail et l'impact du travail sur la santé d'une population mal connue, celle des personnes très gênées par des troubles de l'audition tels que des acouphènes ou de l'hyperacousie. Les données, issues du Baromètre Santé Sourds et Malentendants (BSSM) de l'Institut national de prévention et d'éducation pour la santé (INPES, devenu en 2016 Santé Publique France), fournissent des résultats sur la perception des conditions de travail, les ressources et contraintes, sur la reconnaissance des situations de handicap et les aménagements de poste dont les personnes disposent. La comparaison de ces données avec celles obtenues en population générale, via le Baromètre santé 2010, permet de souligner les répercussions vécues du travail sur la santé, en termes de fatigue nerveuse ou de souffrance psychique pour ces populations."

"This work used the FPSICO v.1 method of the Spanish National Institute of Safety and Hygiene to determine the possible psychosocial risks of farm workers in Almería-type greenhouses located in south-eastern Spain to propose health-condition improvements. A 75-question survey was used to evaluate seven psychosocial variables: cognitive load, temporal autonomy, job description, supervision-participation, role definition, worker interest, and personal relationships. A total of 548 workers were evaluated. Also, five qualitative characteristics (of workers) were identified: sex, age, greenhouse type, nationality, and crop type. None of the variables were associated with high psychosocial risk. Thus, the psychosocial health risks encountered by Almería-type greenhouse workers are acceptable, although optimisations over the mid and long term are necessary."

"Fatigue is believed to have a negative effect on workers' safety performance. The current fatigue studies in construction have relied on questionnaire or interview survey, and due to certain limitations of such research method, the changing patterns of errors and the types of errors associated with different levels of fatigue are not well understood. By viewing an unsafe behavior as a cognitive failure, this research proposes an experimental method to study the effect of fatigue on construction workers' safety performance. First, the research designed a typical manual handling task to simulate the actual construction work. The participant's fatigue level could be measured by a Fatigue Assessment Scale for Construction Workers (FASCW), and the participant's safety performance could be measured by monitoring the participant's errors when performing the tasks. Second, a pilot study was conducted to show that the experimental tasks could induce fatigue effectively, and workers made more errors in a fatigue state. Third, the formal study found that the fatigue level of 20 was a critical point from where the effect of fatigue began to emerge. When a worker's fatigue level exceeded 20, there was a linear relationship between fatigue levels and error rates. In terms of error types, when at a relatively low fatigue level above 20, a worker's errors were mainly due to the failure of hazard perception. But as fatigue accumulated, its impact on the worker's capacity of motor control became significant. Relevant implications derived from the experimental findings for safety management are also discussed."

"Le tramway a la cote auprès des usagers et des grandes villes, où il s'implante de plus en plus. Moins auprès de ses conducteurs. TMS, fatigue, système de sécurité perturbant fortement la conduite, risque d'accident grave… Enquête.Conduire le tramway, ça fait mal, ça fait peur et ça fatigue. Ce constat sévère est dressé par le cabinet Indigo ergonomie, qui a réalisé fin 2013 une expertise pour le CHSCT de Keolis Bordeaux, l'entreprise exploitant le tram de cette ville, sur les conditions de travail des traminots et leur exposition aux risques professionnels. En particulier, le risque de troubles musculo-squelettiques (TMS). Considéré comme un mode de transport moderne et d'avenir, le tramway a fait son grand retour dans de nombreuses villes. Mais plusieurs études ou expertises menées sur les trams de Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Strasbourg ou encore Montpellier démontrent que leur conduite n'est pas sans risque pour la santé des traminots et, au-delà, pour la sécurité des usagers."

"Italian researchers from the Occupational Medicine Institute at the University of Sassari have completed a study on the causes of visual fatigue for video display terminals (VDT) workers in office environments. Specifically, they examined the part played by psychological factors in complaints about visual health reported by banking officers who work at VDTs. 212 people were asked to respond to three different questionnaires on subjects of job stress, subjective discomfort related to environmental and lighting conditions, and existence of oculovisual disturbances. Eye strain included itchy, sore, or heavy eyes, and blurred or double vision during or immediately after work three or more times a week. All subjects shared the same environment and work duties, and none had any history of eye problems. The study found that social support, group conflict, self esteem, work satisfaction, and under use of skills were found to be predictors of visual complaints. Subjective environmental factors, although in some cases significantly correlated with asthenopia, were not found to be strong predictors of the symptoms. Employees who felt they received social support were a third less likely to report eye strain. Lighting did not seem to affect levels of eye strain, but noise and environmental tobacco smoke did.The researchers concluded that some part of the complaints about visual health reported by VDT workers are likely indirect expressions of psychological discomfort related to working conditions. "

The combined effects of city noise and luminance of the computer display were evaluated from the changes in lymphocytes and mental activities of participants. Healthy male students were tested under the following four experimental conditions: (1) a calculating task on a video display terminal (VDT) with luminance of 90 cd m-2 without city noise; (2) a calculating task on a VDT with luminance of 20 cd m-2 without city noise; (3) a calculating task on a VDT with luminance of 90 cd m-2 with city noise of 70 dB(A); and (4) a calculating task on a VDT with luminance of 20 cd m-2 with city noise of 70 dB(A). A visual reaction test (VRT) was performed, and critical flicker fusion frequency (CFF), heart rate (HR), numbers of circulating white blood cells (WBCs), lymphocyte subsets and subjective symptoms of fatigue were measured (1) before; (2) just after; and (3) 30 min after each 60 min test. Subjective symptoms of fatigue significantly increased just after experiments conducted under the two noisy conditions. VRT and CFF showed significant changes in the case of the highluminance display with noise. WBCs and neutrophils showed significant increases in the two quiet conditions. These results suggested that high luminance with noise had the most effect on subjective fatigue and mental activities.

Systematic and quantitative management of work-related fatigue within workplaces has been a challenging task due to a lack of useful tools. A previous paper provided background and development of a work-related fatigue modelling approach. The current paper outlines model evaluations using sleep deprivation experiments and recommendations of work scheduling. Previous studies have reported cumulative effects of sleep restriction (4- 5 h per night) on a number of measures. Model predictions were correlated against psychomotor vigilance task lapses (r= 0.92) and reaction time responses (slowest 10% ,r= 0.91) as well as sleep latency (r=-0.97). Further correlations were performed on four measures from a 64 h continuous sleep deprivation study; that is objective vigilance (r=-0.75) as well as subjective performance (r=-0.75), sleepiness (r= 0.82) and tiredness (r= 0.79). Evaluation against current scheduling recommendations illustrated consistency with the literature with the exception that forward rotation did not provide benefits over backward rotation. The results indicate that model predictions correlate well across a range of objective and subjective measures. This relationship also appears to hold for cumulative and continuous sleep deprivation protocols. Future studies will also focus on field-based evaluation.

Fatigue has been identified as a major risk factor for shiftworkers. However, few organizations or governments currently manage work-related fatigue in any systematic or quantitative manner. This paper outlines an approach to managing fatigue that could improve shiftwork management. Using shift start and finish times as an input, the outlined model quantifies work-related fatigue on the basis of its known determinants; that is shift timing and duration, work history and the biological limits on sleep length at specific times of day. Evaluations suggest that work-related fatigue scores correlate very highly with sleep-onset latency, neurobehavioural impairment and subjective sleepiness. The model is useful in that it allows comparisons to be made between rosters independent of shift length and timing or the total number of work hours. Furthermore, unlike many models of sleepiness and fatigue, individual's sleep times are not required as hours of work are used as the input. It is believed the model provides the potential quantitatively to link the effects of shiftwork to specific organizational health and safety outcomes. This simple approach may be especially critical at a time when many organizations view longer and more flexible hours from their employees as an immediate productivity gain.