A hard day’s night: time use in shift workers

Abstract

Background Differences in how shift workers accumulate physical activity (PA) while at work and in leisure time, on days when they are working at night, during the day, or on non-work days, are largely unexplored. The aim of this study was to improve understanding of physical activity patterns in two groups of shift workers, and to measure variations according to their shift schedules. Methods This pragmatic pilot study was conducted in two workplaces. Employees in Workplace 1 ( n = 10) were required to drive for most of their shift. Workplace 2 was a manufacturing company where most of the employees’ ( n = 30) occupational tasks were completed while standing. Use of time was assessed using the adult version of the Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adults (MARCA) administered by telephone interview. Three MARCA interviews were conducted with each participant, in order to capture a typical profile of a day-shift day, a night-shift day and a non-work day, using a two-day recall for each interview. Participants were asked to wear the activPAL3™ activity monitor, for 7 consecutive days. Paired and independent t-tests were used to compute significant differences between day-shift, night-shift and non-work days within and between workplaces. Results The total number of days quantified for the MARCA data was 192 days (64 day-shift, 60 night-shift and 68 non-work days). Workplace 2 participants reported more physical activity and less sedentary behaviour on day-shift and night shift days than on non-work days. Time spent in sedentary behaviour was similar on day-shift, night-shift and non-work days in Workplace 1. Workplace 1 participants were more sedentary ( p = 0.003) and engaged in more light intensity PA ( p = 0.031) on day-shift and night-shift workdays, than those from Workplace 2. Sleep times were lowest on day-shift days. Conclusion As the occupational tasks for participants in Workplace 2 involved physical activities, the findings do not support the conventional view that shift workers are more sedentary than those who only work during the day. Rather occupational tasks appear to be a more important determinant of physical activity patterns both on work and non-work days than varying shift patterns.

Are prolonged sitting and sleep restriction a dual curse for the modern workforce? a randomised controlled trial protocol

“…Previous studies have noted that ~75% of shiftworkers have a BMI in the range of 18 to 30 kgm 2 . 63 64 Therefore, in the current study participants will be excluded if they have a BMI score of ≥30. This exclusion criteria has also been used in other laboratory based shiftworking protocols.…”

Comparison of adult shift and non-shift workers’ physical activity and sleep behaviours: cross-sectional analysis from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) cohort

“…Furthermore, while evidence exists that total physical activity does not significantly vary between shift and non-shift workers, there is mixed results on the level of engagement of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (Loprinzi 2015;Neil-Sztramko et al 2016;Roskoden et al 2017). Current evidence suggests many of these variations in physical activity intensity are attributed to occupational demands, rather than shift work directly (Kolbe-Alexander et al 2019); however, further research is required to better understand these differences.…”

“…Existing studies that examine the physical activity and sleep of shift workers, have reported these behaviours separately (Flahr et al 2018;Kecklund and Axelsson 2016), with few studies examining both physical activity and sleep within the same study (Clark et al 2017;Kolbe-Alexander et al 2019;Varela-Mato et al 2017). It is important to examine physical activity and sleep together as they are known to co-occur, with a bi-directional relationship occurring between these behaviours (Ding et al 2015;Kline 2014;Oftedal et al 2019;Rayward et al 2017).…”

Daily injection of melatonin inhibits insulin resistance induced by chronic mealtime shift

“…With the advent of light bulbs, however, individuals increasingly tend to work at unusual times of the day in most industrialized countries. For example, a significant proportion (16~28%) of the population works in various shifts currently (Kervezee et al, 2018 ; Kolbe‐Alexander et al, 2019 ). Several lines of epidemiological evidence clearly indicate that those who work in shifts are more likely to develop chronic illnesses, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiometabolic consequences, and sleep disturbances (Lim et al, 2018 ; Liu et al, 2018 ; Zimmet et al, 2019 ; Zoto et al, 2019 ).…”