Influence of shift work on cognitive performance in male business

process outsourcing employees

India
Authors: Bijavara Shwetha and Honnamachanahalli Sudhakar
Year: 2012
Source: Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine

India is a one of the leading countries in IT industry. Business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is main
part of IT industry with around 4.5 million employees. These employees are under a lot of stress, and
are also subjected to uneven working hours and repeated shift changes which in-turn leads to increase
in physical and mental health problems. The aim of this study is to understand the cognitive functions
in male BPO employees exposed to regular shifts. For this study young BPO employees from different
BPO companies in Bangalore were selected for the purpose of testing cognitive function. The subjects
selected were in the age group of 25-35 yrs., who were on compulsory rotating night shifts were
selected, BPO employees with who had minimum work experience of 6 months and who had been
working on computers for at least 25 hours per week, subjects with good physical and mental were
chosen after obtaining their health details from relevant clinical examinations, 50 male BPO
employees were selected and study group was formed they were compared with 50 age-matched
individuals working in non-BPO sectors and did not have any night shifts who were controls. Mean age
of study subjects was 29.14 ± 2.96 years and that of controls was 28.52 ± 2.77 years. All the subjects
were gauged for cognitive functions at the end of their work. Data was analysed by t-test and Mann-
Whitney test using SPSS V.13.0. BPO employees performed poorly compared to their controls in tests
for mental speed, learning and memory, and response inhibition. No changes were seen between
groups in tests for attention and working memory. This study was conducted only among the male
member, female members which constitute about 35% of BPO were not included

Mental, physical and social health problems of call centre workers

Authors: P. Bhuyar, A. Banerjee, H. Pandve, P. Padmnabhan, A. Patil, S. Duggirala, S. Rajan, S.
Chaudhury
Year: 2008
Source: Industrial Psychiatry Journal

This study was carried out at two locations Pune and Mumbai, the study comprised of domestic BPO
call centre located at Pune and an international call centre located at Mumbai, sample of 100 call
centre workers comprising of male and female members were selected from two cities Pune and
Mumbai and were surveyed by qualitative and quantitative methods, qualitative data were collected
by one of the senior investigators by focus group interviews of a group of 8 BPO employees using
open ended interview method, whereas quantitative data was collected by face to face interview by
two medical interns located at Pune and Mumbai through pre-tested structured instrument. The
results showed that high proportion of worker were shown to have suffer from sleep disturbances and
mental stress and anxiety, physical problem such as musculoskeletal disorders, obesity, eye, and
hearing problems were present. Psychosocial problems included disruption in family life, use of
tobacco and alcohol, and faulty eating habits. Data that was collected was entered on Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet and analyse using EpiInfo 2002. Chi Square and ODDs Ratio with 95% Confidence Intervals
were used to explore associations between two main predictors such as gender and type of call centre
(whether domestic or international) and some outcomes of interest.
The impact of shift work on the psychological and physical
health of nurses in a general hospital: a comparison
between rotating night shifts and day shifts
Authors: Paola Ferri Matteo Guadi Luigi Marcheselli Sara Balduzzi, Daniela Magnani, Rosaria Di
Lorenzo
Year: 2016
Source: Risk Management and healthcare policy

Shift work is necessary to safeguard the stability of care in hospitals and residential facilities, one of
the most frequent reasons for disturbance of circadian rhythm is night shift, it causes substantial
alteration of sleep and biological functions which will in turn affect physical and psychological well-
being of an individual and will likely to have negative impact on work performance. The purpose of
this study is to highlight if shift work at night compared with day work, is related to risk factors
subjecting nurses to poorer health conditions and lower job satisfaction. This is a cross-sectional study
which was conducted from June 1, 2015 to July 31 2015 in 17 wards of a general hospital and a
residential facility of a northern Italian city, this study consisted to 213 nurses who worked the day
shift and 65 nurses who worked the night shift, the research instrument used for data collection was
the “Standard Shift Work Index” validated in Italian, the data obtained was statistically analysed, the
findings showed that 86% of nurses engaged in rotating night shifts were younger, single, and had
bachelors and master’s degrees, had the lowest mean score in job satisfaction, quality and quantity
of sleep and were subjected to chronic fatigue, psychological, and cardiovascular symptoms in
comparison with the day shift workers

The impact of a nap opportunity during the night shift on the

performance and alertness of 12‐h shift workers
Authors: M.T Purnell, A.M Feyer, G.P Herbison
Year: 2002
Source: Wiley Online Library

The aim of this study was to evaluate how strategic napping effects performance, 24 male engineers
volunteered to take part in the study for 2 weeks, during experimental week, each subject was asked
to take 20‐min nap at work. On the control week no naps were taken on the night shifts. A
computerized test battery was employed to evaluate performance and individual levels of fatigue at
the beginning and end of each night shift, and pre and post nap. At the start of each shift a short
questionnaire was administered in order to obtain information from the subjects with respect to sleep
obtained from nap and their level of sleepiness when they are driving to and from work, the
participants were required to report via questionnaire the time, duration and estimated sleep latency,
data of unscheduled nap was not used foe analysis, for measuring sleepiness while driving to and from
work the subjects were asked to rate on how close they were to falling asleep while driving on visual
analogue scale. The outcomes exposed that taking a single 20‐min nap during the first night shift
dramatically enhanced speed of reaction towards a task measured at the end of the shift compared
with the control condition. On the second night shift there was no effect of the nap on performance.
Self-Reported Health and Sleep Complaints among Nursing
Personnel Working Under 12 h Night and Day Shifts
Author: Luciana F. Portela, Lúcia Rotenberg & William Waissmann
Source: The journal of Biological and Medical Rhythm Research
Year: 2004
A cross sectional exploratory study involving healthcare workers was conducted, data was collected
from two public hospitals through questionnaires and other forms, subjects who had at least one night
job during the course of research were considered. Two hundred and fifty-eight female nursing
personnel participated, 2 weeks before survey the reports of migraine and need of medical care was
need among day workers. After comparing the history of day and night workers it was seen that
Migraine headaches occurred less frequently among night than day workers mild emotional disorders
were less among night and ex-night workers than day workers who never worked a night job. The
exposure of risk factors such as stress seemed as a reason. There was no sleep complaint between
night and day workers, this may be due to the nature of shift work and naps during night. Among night
workers, a significant relation was found between years working and high cholesterol. Complaints
about insuffient time for children was seen among workers who worked night shift more than four
times during the course of 2 weeks The difficulty of the professional life and the resulting differences
of the group of workers under shift-work schemes confuse the results. More in-depth study of the
questions raised here demands a more sophisticated epidemiological treatment and larger sample
size.