Cargando…

Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment

Under controlled laboratory conditions, neurobehavioral assays such as the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) are sensitive to increasing levels of fatigue, and in general, tend to correlate with subjective ratings. However, laboratory studies specifically curtail physical activity, potentially limiti...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ferguson, Sally A., Smith, Bradley P., Browne, Matthew, Rockloff, Matthew J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772191/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26840323
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13020171
_version_ 1782418518382215168
author Ferguson, Sally A.
Smith, Bradley P.
Browne, Matthew
Rockloff, Matthew J.
author_facet Ferguson, Sally A.
Smith, Bradley P.
Browne, Matthew
Rockloff, Matthew J.
author_sort Ferguson, Sally A.
collection PubMed
description Under controlled laboratory conditions, neurobehavioral assays such as the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) are sensitive to increasing levels of fatigue, and in general, tend to correlate with subjective ratings. However, laboratory studies specifically curtail physical activity, potentially limiting the applicability of such findings to field settings that involve physical work. In addition, laboratory studies typically involve healthy young male participants that are not always representative of a typical working population. In order to determine whether these findings extend to field-like conditions, we put 88 Australian volunteer firefighters through a multi-day firefighting simulation. Participants were required to perform real-world physical and cognitive tasks under conditions of elevated temperature and moderate sleep restriction. We aimed to examine changes in fatigue in an effort to determine the optimum objective and subjective measures. Objective and subjective tests were sensitive to fatigue outside laboratory conditions. The PVT was the most sensitive assay of objective fatigue, with the Samn-Perelli fatigue scale the most sensitive of the subjective measures. The Samn-Perilli fatigue scale correlated best with PVT performance, but explained a small amount of variance. Although the Samn-Perelli scale can be easily administered in the field, the wide range of individual variance limits its efficacy as a once-off assessment tool. Rather, fatigue measures should be applied as a component of a broader fatigue risk management system. Findings provide firefighting agencies, and other occupations involving physical work, guidance as to the most sensitive and specific measures for assessing fatigue in their personnel.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4772191
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2016
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-47721912016-03-08 Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment Ferguson, Sally A. Smith, Bradley P. Browne, Matthew Rockloff, Matthew J. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Under controlled laboratory conditions, neurobehavioral assays such as the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) are sensitive to increasing levels of fatigue, and in general, tend to correlate with subjective ratings. However, laboratory studies specifically curtail physical activity, potentially limiting the applicability of such findings to field settings that involve physical work. In addition, laboratory studies typically involve healthy young male participants that are not always representative of a typical working population. In order to determine whether these findings extend to field-like conditions, we put 88 Australian volunteer firefighters through a multi-day firefighting simulation. Participants were required to perform real-world physical and cognitive tasks under conditions of elevated temperature and moderate sleep restriction. We aimed to examine changes in fatigue in an effort to determine the optimum objective and subjective measures. Objective and subjective tests were sensitive to fatigue outside laboratory conditions. The PVT was the most sensitive assay of objective fatigue, with the Samn-Perelli fatigue scale the most sensitive of the subjective measures. The Samn-Perilli fatigue scale correlated best with PVT performance, but explained a small amount of variance. Although the Samn-Perelli scale can be easily administered in the field, the wide range of individual variance limits its efficacy as a once-off assessment tool. Rather, fatigue measures should be applied as a component of a broader fatigue risk management system. Findings provide firefighting agencies, and other occupations involving physical work, guidance as to the most sensitive and specific measures for assessing fatigue in their personnel. MDPI 2016-01-29 2016-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4772191/ /pubmed/26840323 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13020171 Text en © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ferguson, Sally A.
Smith, Bradley P.
Browne, Matthew
Rockloff, Matthew J.
Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment
title Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment
title_full Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment
title_fullStr Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment
title_full_unstemmed Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment
title_short Fatigue in Emergency Services Operations: Assessment of the Optimal Objective and Subjective Measures Using a Simulated Wildfire Deployment
title_sort fatigue in emergency services operations: assessment of the optimal objective and subjective measures using a simulated wildfire deployment
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772191/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26840323
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13020171
work_keys_str_mv AT fergusonsallya fatigueinemergencyservicesoperationsassessmentoftheoptimalobjectiveandsubjectivemeasuresusingasimulatedwildfiredeployment
AT smithbradleyp fatigueinemergencyservicesoperationsassessmentoftheoptimalobjectiveandsubjectivemeasuresusingasimulatedwildfiredeployment
AT brownematthew fatigueinemergencyservicesoperationsassessmentoftheoptimalobjectiveandsubjectivemeasuresusingasimulatedwildfiredeployment
AT rockloffmatthewj fatigueinemergencyservicesoperationsassessmentoftheoptimalobjectiveandsubjectivemeasuresusingasimulatedwildfiredeployment