Effect of overtime work on cognitive function in automotive workers

Abstract

Objective The present investigation examined whether increased overtime work predicts inlpairment in cognitive performance in the domains of attention, executive function, and mood. Methods The behavioral and cognitive functions of 248 automotive workers were measured by a neurobehavioral test performance. Overtime, defined as number of hours worked greater than 8 11 a day or greater than 5 d a week, was calculated from company payroll records for the week before the test day. The number of consecutive days worked before the test day was also determined. Results Cross-sectional data analysis by multiple linear regression, after adjustment for the effects of age, education, gender, alcohol intake, repeated grade in school, acute petroleu~n naphtha exposure, shift worked, job type, number of consecutive days worked before the test day, and number of hours worlied on the test day before the testing, demonstrated that increased overtime was significantly associated with impaired performance on several tests of attention and executive function. Increased feelings of depression, fatigue, and conf~~sion were also associated with increased overtime work. In addition significant interaction effects were observed for job type but not for naphtha exposure. C O f l c l~~i O f l~The findings support the hypothesis that overtime work results in impaired cognitive performance in the areas of attention and executive function and that both overtime hours and the number of consecutive days worlied prior to a test day affect mood.

Long workhours and health

“…The following characteristics of the sample are mentioned in the table: number of participants, country of residence, percentage of men and women, mean age of the sample (or age range if mean age was not reported), type of occupation(s), and type of organization(s). The selected studies concerned 9 European samples (26-28, 36, 41, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51), 4 samples from the United States (29,32,42,48), and 13 Japanese samples (30, 31, 33-35, 37-40, 44-46, 52). Twelve studies had mixed-gender samples (26,27,29,32,34,(41)(42)(43)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51), although one was predominantly male (32) and one predominantly female (48).…”

“…Extended workhours could be measured as overtime hours (per day, week, month, or year), or the total number of workhours (per day, week, or month). Only two studies (38,42) used officially registered workhours as a source of information; the others relied on self-reports.…”

“…Three studies (26,42,50) focused on specific indicators of psychological health. One (26) included subscales of the General Health Questionnaire, which focused on psychological health (ie, social dysfunction and severe depression).…”

Effect of Overtime Work and Insufficient Sleep on Postural Sway in Information‐Technology Workers

“…Significant changes of cerebral nervous functioning like visual-evoked potential (VEP) latencies were observed in visual display terminal (VDT) workers in our previous study 15) . In an USA study, increased overtime work was reported to be associated with increased feelings of depression, fatigue, and confusion 16) . In the present study, depression and other mood states were also assessed using the Profile of Mood States (POMS), which gives scores for overall mood and six mood dimensions 17) , however, there was no difference in the POMS fatigue scale between longer and shorter overtime workers.…”

Psychosocial aspects of stress, health and safety on North Sea installations

“…In particular, Proctor et a1 examined the effects of overtime hours on cognitive performance among autoinotive workers (52). After control for possible confounding variables, overtime hours were found to predict impaired perforlnance on several tests of attention and visual-motor skills.…”