Shift work II The evidence

Learning outcomes At the end of this lecture and with additional reading you should be able to – evaluate shift work in real world settings

Job performance Many industrial accidents involving human error occur between midnight and 6 am – the three mile island mishap occurred at 4am they were weekly rotating shiftworkers (Eehret, 1981 – However the impact of shift work can be associated with type of task Performance trends of simple tasks such as monitoring and inspection would be expected to reach their lowest level during late night and early morning hours

Job related attitudes Shiftworkers are more disgruntled that their day working counterparts Shiftworkers report lower levels of satisfaction (Herbert, 1983) Shiftworkers also demonstrate lower fulfillment and emotional well being (Frost and Jamal,1979)

Personal health A paradoxical finding is that shiftworkers often report few health complaints that regular day workers Workers who experience most distress leave shiftwork early, those who stay are a select group (Angersbach et al, 1980) Gastrointestinal disorder are most widely associated with shiftwork - more prevalent with prolonged exposure to nightwork (Angersbach et al, 1980)

Social and domestic factors Shiftwork interferes with personal life especially family roles Divorcee was 50% more frequent in night workers than in any other group (Tepas et al, 1985) leads to isolation wit fewer friends and more leisure time in solitary pursuits

A case study - offshore rig workers Sutherland and Cooper (1987) – the longer the shift the worse the amount of stress found e.g. from a 14 day on 14 day off shift to a 28 day 28 day off shift – the shift pattern was a predictor of mental health and physical ill health especially when the workers were married with children

A case study - nurses Hughes (2004) – night shift and general rotating shifts particular concern – while some people tolerate the physical strains of shift work better than others it can still results in fatigue, irritability, reduced performance and decreased mental agility

A case study - miners Hossain et al (2004) – evaluated the extension of a 8 hr shift to a 10 hr rotating shift – improved subjective performance – more refreshing sleep partly due to the change in time of the night shift

A case study - the police service Shift work is commonly reported as stressful by police officers Rotating shifts are seen as having negative impacts on family and social life However evidence suggest otherwise

The police service - empirical evidence Storch and Panzarella (1996) – midnight shift more desirable due to reduced work load – jealousy over senior officers who had a monopoly on midnight shift Lester (1986) – 48% of officers said that rotating shifts were enjoyable – 64% said rotating shifts made police work more interesting – problems

The police service - empirical evidence Pierce and Dunham (1992) – change from 8 hr shift to 12 hr 4 day on, 4 day off – greater ability to regulate personal life – increased motivation and job satisfaction

The police service - conclusions A note of caution a relationship has still be found between length of service (shift work) and health problems: namely sleep problems and gastro problems Although there is some debate whether it is the rotating shift work or routine operational/organisational stressors (Neylan, 2002)