Researchers in Austria have found that shift work is associated with poor working memory and slower mental processing speed. To this end, their study also found that because of its cognitive effects, shift work can increase the risk of injuries and mistakes in the workplace.
This is the result of a meta-analysis of pooled data published online in the journal ‘Occupational & Environmental Medicine.’ Consequently, the author, Thomas Vlasak, PhD, a researcher at the Sigmund Freud University in Linz, Austria, and colleagues suggested protective measures such as regular breaks and vigilance checks should be encouraged during shift work.
A total of 18 studies published from 2005-2020 were included in the analysis. The studies included 18,800 subjects (average age, 35 years).
The results of the different studies showed that shift workers performed significantly worse, compared with other workers in five of the six outcomes investigated.
A major, statistically significant effect was found for impulse control and situational reaction, whereas the effects for working speed, working memory, awareness, and the ability to filter out unimportant visual information were statistically significant, but smaller, reported the ‘Medscape’.
Similarly, the study found that task switching was the only outcome that saw no negative effect. In addition, the results showed a significantly poorer performance by shift workers, compared to non-shift workers.
