Evaluation of Alertness, Reaction Time and Planning ability Variations in Petrochemical Operational Workers with Daily 12-hour Work Shift

Abstract

Introduction: The control rooms and operational sectors in oil and Petrochemical industries are included high cognitive load due to many changes in technology. Hence, cognitive performance and human errors must be considered. Therefore, the aim of this study is monitoring changes in Alertness, Reaction time and planning ability among the petrochemical workers with daily 12-hour work shift.

Methods and materials: In this field experiment and comparative study, Vienna Test System (VTS) was used for evaluation of cognitive performances among the workers. W-Sturm-Attention Functional-Alertness (WAFA) for assessment of alertness, Reaction Time (RT) for reaction time and Tower Of London (TOL-F) for planning ability are used in four different times. Finally, the SPSS-V23 and Minitab-V17software were also used for data analysis. Results: The alertness and planning ability levels increased and decreased, respectively, but the reaction time was decreased during the shift. There were significant relationship between reaction time (P=0.003), planning ability (P=0.008) and alertness in response to visual stimuli (P=0.003) with time of the test during the shift. Conclusions: changing in Alertness and planning ability levels do not follow a specific pattern, however, Reaction time decreased during the 12-h shift. The learning effect and also repeated measures may influence the findings. So, more studies are needed with considering the mentioned limitations.