Arsintescu Lucia, Kato Kenji H, Hilditch Cassie J, Gregory Kevin B, Flynn-Evans Erin
San Jose State University Research Foundation.
ASRS Research and Technology Solutions.
J Vis Exp. 2019 Aug 8(150). doi: 10.3791/59851.
Sleep loss and circadian misalignment contribute to a meaningful proportion of operational accidents and incidents. Countermeasures and work scheduling designs aimed at mitigating fatigue are typically evaluated in controlled laboratory environments, but the effectiveness of translating such strategies to operational environments can be challenging to assess. This manuscript summarizes an approach for collecting sleep, circadian, fatigue, and performance data in a complex operational environment. We studied 44 airline pilots over 34 days while they flew a fixed schedule, which included a baseline data collection with 5 days of mid-morning flights, four early flights, four high-workload mid-day flights, and four late flights that landed after midnight. Each work block was separated by 3-4 days of rest. To assess sleep, participants wore a wrist-worn research-validated activity monitor continuously and completed daily sleep diaries. To assess the circadian phase, pilots were asked to collect all urine produced in four or eight hourly bins during the 24 h after each duty block for the assessment of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s), which is a biomarker of the circadian rhythm. To assess subjective fatigue and objective performance, participants were provided with a touch-screen device used to complete the Samn-Perelli Fatigue Scale and Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) during and after each flight, and at waketime, mid-day, and bedtime. Using these methods, it was found that sleep duration was reduced during early starts and late finishes relative to baseline. Circadian phase shifted according to duty schedule, but there was a wide range in the aMT6s peak between individuals on each schedule. PVT performance was worse on the early, high-workload, and late schedules relative to baseline. Overall, the combination of these methods was practical and effective for assessing the influence of sleep loss and circadian phase on fatigue and performance in a complex operational environment.
睡眠不足和昼夜节律失调在相当一部分操作事故和事件中起到了作用。旨在减轻疲劳的对策和工作排班设计通常在受控的实验室环境中进行评估，但将这些策略应用于实际操作环境中的有效性却难以评估。本手稿总结了一种在复杂操作环境中收集睡眠、昼夜节律、疲劳和绩效数据的方法。我们对44名航空公司飞行员进行了为期34天的研究，他们按照固定的时间表飞行，其中包括一个基线数据收集阶段，有5天的上午中段航班、4次早班航班、4次高工作量的中午航班以及4次午夜后降落的晚班航班。每个工作时段之间间隔3至4天的休息时间。为了评估睡眠情况，参与者连续佩戴经研究验证的腕部活动监测器，并完成每日睡眠日记。为了评估昼夜节律阶段，要求飞行员在每个值班时段后的24小时内，将尿液收集到4小时或8小时的容器中，用于评估6-硫酸氧褪黑素（aMT6s），这是昼夜节律的生物标志物。为了评估主观疲劳和客观绩效，在每次飞行期间和之后，以及在醒来时、中午和就寝时间，为参与者提供触摸屏设备，用于完成Samn-Perelli疲劳量表和心理运动警觉任务（PVT）。通过这些方法发现，与基线相比，早班开始和晚班结束时的睡眠时间减少。昼夜节律阶段根据值班时间表发生了变化，但每个时间表上个体之间的aMT6s峰值范围很广。与基线相比，在早班、高工作量和晚班时间表上，PVT表现更差。总体而言，这些方法的组合对于评估复杂操作环境中睡眠不足和昼夜节律阶段对疲劳和绩效的影响既实用又有效。
