No abstract

Shiftwork is associated with negative impact on workers' performance, safety and health due to circadian rhythms disturbance and sleep deficit. The purpose of this study was to assess performance and sleepiness among Thai oil rig onshore shift workers. Healthy Thai onshore shift workers who work on a 12-hour swing shift in an oil and gas company in Thailand participated in this study. The work cycle started from one week of night shifts followed by one week of day shifts. All participants were asked to rate their sleepiness using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) questionnaire at the first visit. Furthermore, the participants performed the finger tapping (FT) test in an android application at the pre-and post-shift at the beginning and end of "Night" and "Day" shift period. For the FT test, each participant was instructed to use the index finger to tap on a response button as fast as possible within a 10-second time interval. The total of 38 male-shift workers with a mean age of 36.1±7.87 years participated in this study. The results showed that the mean ESS score was 8.84±4.03 and 63.2% of the participants had an ESS score in the normal range (ESS = 0-10), 31.6% had mild to moderate degree of sleepiness (ESS = 11-15), and 5.3% had severe degree of sleepiness (ESS > 16). For the "Night" shift period, the mean left FT rates on "Night 1"and "Night 7" of the pre-shift were 60.32±6.21 times/10 seconds and 61.39±7.43 times/10 seconds, respectively and of the post-shift were 56.24±5.43 times/10 seconds and 58.76±6.93 times/10 seconds, respectively. The mean right FT rates on "Night 1 and "Night 7" of the pre-shift were 65.11±6.49 times/10 seconds and 65.79±7.82 times/10 seconds, respectively and of the post-shift were 61.08±7.23 times and 63.5±7.44 times/10 seconds, respectively. The results showed that, for the "Night" shift period, the mean left and right FT rates of the post-shift were significantly less than those of the pre-shift (p < 0.05). For the "Day" shift period, the mean left FT rates on "Day 1" and "Day 8" of the pre-shift were 60.08±6.98 times/10 seconds and 61.03±6.73 times/10 seconds, respectively and of the post-shift were 62±6.54 times/10 seconds and 61.76±6.87 times/10 seconds, respectively. The mean of right FT rates on "Day 1" and "Day 8" of the pre-shift were 64.74±7.94 times/10 seconds and 65.97±7.82 times/10 seconds, respectively and of the post-shift were 65.68±10.35 times/10 seconds and 67.66±8.06 times/10 seconds, respectively. The results showed that in general, for the "Day" shift period, the mean left and right FT rates of the post-shift were significantly greater than those of the pre-shift (p < 0.05). The onshore shift workers revealed poorer performance during the "Night" shift period than the "Day" shift period which might be due to the perturbation of circadian rhythms and sleep loss. It might lead to poor quality of life and higher risk of accident in shift workers. Thus, work scheduling and effective assessment of performance and sleepiness should be of concern to the orga...