Supporting Police Well-Being Through an Adaptive Shift Management System: Co-Design Study

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Digital Health Interventions
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Police personnel face significant health and well-being challenges due to demanding shift work, including fatigue, poor sleep, and stress.
• Existing digital health tools inadequately address the unique needs of shift workers, particularly those in emergency services.
• There is a critical need for tailored interventions that integrate shift management with health and well-being support.

Purpose of the Study:

• To co-design a shift management system specifically for a well-being application.
• To address the unique health and well-being challenges faced by police personnel due to shift work.
• To create a user-centered digital solution for emergency service workers.

Main Methods:

• Employed interactive management methodology, user-centered design, and cocreation through 6 co-design workshops.
• Integrated persona mapping, scenario walk-throughs, and structured feedback for user needs assessment.
• Utilized participatory feedback and thematic analysis for iterative system development and feature prioritization.

Main Results:

• Identified critical needs for flexible, real-time shift schedule management and work-life balance support.
• Developed a prototype featuring bulk schedule creation/modification, customization, and trend visualization tools.
• Demonstrated that integrating a schedule management system into a well-being app can offer personalized support for police personnel.

Conclusions:

• The co-designed shift management system proved feasible and highly acceptable to users.
• Integrating shift scheduling into well-being apps offers tailored support for nutrition, sleep, hydration, and physical activity.
• This combined approach shows potential for sustainable improvements in health, well-being, and work-life balance for high-stress occupations.