Promoting Employees' Recovery During Shift Work: Protocol for a Workplace Intervention Study.

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Workplace Interventions
• Shift Work Research

Background:

• Shift work disrupts biological and social rhythms, leading to fatigue and reduced alertness in employees.
• Enhancing employee recovery during working hours is a potential strategy to mitigate negative shift work effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement an intervention focused on promoting "on-job" recovery for shift workers.
• To investigate the link between the intervention and daily within-person processes using digital ecological momentary assessment.

Main Methods:

• User-centered design and evaluation in two departments of a multinational steel company.
• Iterative development involving employees and a project group (researchers, managers, occupational health experts).
• Evaluation using pretest/posttest surveys, digital ecological momentary assessment, and process evaluation.

Main Results:

• Study supported by Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research.
• Baseline data collected June-August 2019; first follow-up November-December 2019.
• Second follow-up and analysis planned for Q1-Q2 2020; dissemination in Q3-Q4 2020.

Conclusions:

• Participatory action approach enhances stakeholder commitment and intervention adherence.
• Unique combination of quantitative and qualitative methods for comprehensive evaluation.
• Study serves as a starting point for scarce research on shift work interventions, despite limitations in generalizability and follow-up duration.