Powell, R and Copping, A (2010) Sleep deprivation and its consequences in construction workers. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 136(10), pp. 1086-1092. ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Sleep deprivation contributes to fatigue, which can have a profound effect on an individual's wellbeing, work performance, and safety. To investigate this phenomenon, a study was conducted on a sample of construction workers on a large construction project in Vancouver, Canada. This paper reports on the results from the workers wearing an actigraph 24 h/day for a full week to precisely measure their sleep and rest. The results enabled sleep efficiency and mental effectiveness levels to be determined by correlating them to blood alcohol concentration levels. This allowed determination of increased risk due to inadequate sleep. It was found that workers fell well under recommended sleep requirement guidelines of 8-h sleep per night, which resulted in an increase in risk of accident of 9%. Although further work is needed to better understand the coping mechanisms of fatigue and how the resulting fatigue factor could be measured and managed, this study indicates that workers in the construction industry suffer decrements in performance and are at higher risk of accident at home and work solely due to inadequate sleep.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | accidents; fatigue; impairment; productivity; sleep deprivation |
| Index terms: | coping, effectiveness, construction industry, construction worker, work performance, efficiency, productivity, Canada, well-being, impairment, deprivation, alcohol, large construction project, fatigue |
| Subjects: | social justice, health conditions and diseases, industry analysis, behavioral psychology, management, performance management, organizational theory, Geography, psychology, operations management, mental health and wellbeing, practitioner |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Health and Safety, Project Management, Geographical Context, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Ethics, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here