Shift Work and Health: Current Problems and Preventive Actions
Open accessAbstract
The paper gives an overview of the problems to be tackled nowadays by occupational health with regards to shift work as well as the main guidelines at organizational and medical levels on how to protect workers' health and well-being. Working time organization is becoming a key factor on account of new technologies, market globalization, economic competition, and extension of social services to general populations, all of which involve more and more people in continuous assistance and control of work processes over the 24 hours in a day. The large increase of epidemiological and clinical studies on this issue document the severity of this risk factor on human health and well being, at both social and psychophysical levels, starting from a disruption of biological circadian rhythms and sleep/wake cycle and ending in several psychosomatic troubles and disorders, likely also including cancer, and extending to impairment of performance efficiency as well as family and social life. Appropriate interventions on the organization of shift schedules according to ergonomic criteria and careful health surveillance and social support for shift workers are important preventive and corrective measures that allow people to keep working without significant health impairment.
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Shift work reduces total sleep time by 2 to 4 hours, increases the proportion of REM and stage 2 sleep (perceived as less restful), and causes more frequent and/or earlier sleep interruptions.
“Costa [9] identified the effects of shift work on sleep as a reduction in total sleep time by 2 to 4 h, an increase in the proportion of REM and stage 2 sleep, which is perceived as less restful, and more frequent and/or earlier sleep interruptions, partly for social reasons, for example to eat with the family.”
From Efficacy study comparing a CBT-I developed for shift workers (CBT-I-S) to standard CBT-I (cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia) on sleep onset latency, total sleep time, subjective sleep quality, and daytime sleepiness: study protocol for a parallel group randomised controlled trial with online therapy groups of seven sessions each (2024) · cites this paper as [9]
The 'Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Problems' section says that sleep after a night shift is reduced by 2–4 hours and is more frequently or prematurely interrupted, sometimes so workers can eat with family. It describes poorer stage 2 and REM sleep as less restorative, but does not say that the proportion of those sleep stages increases. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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References 102 · Cited by 443
- Authors
- Costa, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Milan (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Costa, Giovanni
- Venue
- Safety and Health at Work
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-12
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 112-123
- ISSN
- 2093-7911 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3430894
- OpenAlex
- W1966450619
- Cited by
- 443
- References
- 102
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 51 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 6.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Safety and Health at Work (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Safety in Workplaces
- Keywords
- shift work, circadian rhythm disruption, sleep-wake cycle, psychosomatic disorders, occupational health, working time organization, shift scheduling, human factors, health surveillance, social support, work-life balance, cancer risk, performance efficiency
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