Ricerc@Sapienza

Importance: The effects of fast-rotating backward-shift work on subjective and objective measures of sleep-wake quality, daytime attention, and tiredness of healthcare workers have not yet been established.
Objective: To investigate the effect of shift rotation direction on tiredness, sleepiness, and sustained attention among nurses working forward and backward-rotation shifts.
Design: Data will be collected in 128 nurses from five Italian hospitals who are working forward or backward-rotation shifts after three-shift systems (morning, afternoon, and night).
Setting: Five mid-sized hospitals in Italy.
Participants: The participants will comprise 128 nurses of whom 64 have a forward-rotating schedule (i.e., morning to afternoon to night), and 64 have a backward-rotating schedule (i.e., afternoon to morning to night).
Main Outcomes and Measures: Sleep data will be collected using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Sustained attention will be measured using the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Tiredness will be evaluated using the Tiredness Symptom Scale.
Relevance: Direction of shift rotation model is susceptible to negatively affect health and cognitive performance. Our project is aimed to demonstarate how forward rotation may be more beneficial than backward rotation for several measured performance attentional outcomes, tiredness, and sleepiness.
Within this framework, optimization of shift rotations may be implemented to decrease the combination of the negative effects of shift work and reduce the potential risk of medical errors in healthcare systems.