Development of the Fatigue Risk Assessment and Management in High-Risk Environments (FRAME) Survey: A Participatory Approach

Abstract

Existing risk assessment tools are not effective or sustainable in identifying Oil and Gas Extraction (OGE) workers at high risk of fatigue-related injuries or incidents. We developed a comprehensive Fatigue Risk Assessment and Management in high-risk Environments (FRAME) survey through an industry-academic participatory approach. The FRAME survey was developed through: (1) systematic gathering of existing fatigue scales; (2) refining the inventory using the Delphi Consensus technique; and (3) further refinement through employee/worker focus groups. The participatory approach resulted in a final FRAME survey across four fatigue dimensions—sleep, shiftwork, physical, and mental fatigue, and was composed of 26 items. The FRAME survey was founded on occupational fatigue science and refined and tailored to the OGE industry, through rigorous industry stakeholder input, for safer, effective, practical, and sustainable fatigue assessment and management efforts.

US research needs related to fatigue, sleep, and working hours among oil and gas extraction workers

“…Smoking status and physical health predicted sleepiness during offshore work blocks 59 Other studies included health complaints in developing and reviewing fatigue assessment tools 100,101 …”

Current state of worker fatigue assessment and associated recommendations in oil and gas and petrochemical industries

“…Current subjective fatigue assessments did not associate well with physiological measurements in the OGE and petrochemical industry (Mehta et al, 2017). However, the same research group developed a new questionnaire called Fatigue Risk Assessment and Management in high-risk Environments (FRAME), and it can be a possible replacement as it was created specifically for the OGE industry and contains four fatigue dimensions: sleep, shiftwork, physical fatigue, and mental fatigue (Shortz et al, 2019). FRAME questionnaire was founded on occupational fatigue science and went through rigorous testing with OGE stakeholders (Shortz et al, 2019).…”

“…However, the same research group developed a new questionnaire called Fatigue Risk Assessment and Management in high-risk Environments (FRAME), and it can be a possible replacement as it was created specifically for the OGE industry and contains four fatigue dimensions: sleep, shiftwork, physical fatigue, and mental fatigue (Shortz et al, 2019). FRAME questionnaire was founded on occupational fatigue science and went through rigorous testing with OGE stakeholders (Shortz et al, 2019). The authors mentioned time as one of the limitations that they faced using subjective questionnaires.…”

“…10.1177/1071181321651207 dimensional so it is challenging to capture workers' fatigue in OGE industry where it is a complex working environment. Currently, there are no standard fatigue assessment methods to employ in OGE industry although various methods are available for lab settings and applied settings (Vanessa Riethmeister et al, 2018;Shortz et al, 2019). In addition, recent field studies in offshore environments emphasize the need to identify assessment tools that are simple, quick, and effective (Mehta et al, 2017).…”

Fatigue on Oil Refinery Workers and Related Factors

“…Alpha resulted in the death of 167 workers. It is estimated that 80% of industrial work accidents are caused by a human error related to work fatigue [7]. Other studies prove work fatigue is significantly associated with work overload, work situation awareness, and work performance [8], [9].…”