VR Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

Burnout, Professional Clinical Trial

Official title:

Effect of Immersive Virtual Reality Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Terminated

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04132141
• Other study ID #: 051818
• Status: Terminated
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 23, 2019
• Est. completion date: February 27, 2020

Study information

• Verified date: November 2021
• Source: George Washington University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Physician wellness is a hot topic today. Fatigue and alertness are common challenges faced during long work hours. Virtual reality is an immersive technology which has been demonstrated to distract people from pain, stress, and anxiety. Guided relaxation and meditation can impact alertness. There is no literature reporting the impact immersive technologies like VR sessions could have on alertness, a critical area of concern in health care today which impacts physician wellness, quality of care, and duty hours.

The investigator's long-term goal is to develop solutions that can be used across industries to improve human alertness. To solve this problem, the investigators propose to test the feasibility of using an immersive virtual reality experience as a scheduled break and measure the interventions effect on post-break alertness, stress, and anxiety. Previous work at our Institution has demonstrated that VR experiences can reduce pain, stress and anxiety in patients presenting to the emergency department.

Description:

Physician wellness is a hot topic today. Fatigue and alertness are common challenges faced during long work hours. Virtual reality is an immersive technology which has been demonstrated to distract people from pain, stress, and anxiety. Guided relaxation and meditation can impact alertness. There is no literature reporting the impact immersive technologies like VR sessions could have on alertness, a critical area of concern in health care today which impacts physician wellness, quality of care, and duty hours.

The investigator's long-term goal is to develop solutions that can be used across industries to improve human alertness. To solve this problem, the investigator proposes to test the feasibility of using an immersive virtual reality experience as a scheduled break and measure the interventions effect on post-break alertness, stress, and anxiety. Previous work at our Institution has demonstrated that VR experiences can reduce pain, stress and anxiety in patients presenting to the emergency department.

Hypothesis: Short immersive VR breaks are expected to increase alertness and reduce stress and anxiety in residents, physicians, and medical students working on shifts as compared to unstructured breaks.

Aim 1 will establish a biometric footprint of activities relating to the shift of a resident, physician, medical student, or nurse. Understanding how biometric parameters change when performing different activities will establish a baseline for comparing the effect of immersive VR breaks.

Aim 2 will seek to tag the activities a resident, physician, medical student, or nurse is performing during the shift to add context to the biometric data

Aim 3 will be to evaluate metrics for alertness, stress and anxiety of a resident, physician, medical student, or nurse during their shift and specifically determine how they change with immersive VR intervention

The proposed study will establish a new model for managing physician alertness, stress and anxiety and provide insights into viable and effective interventions to improve these parameters for other occupations. The expected improvement in alertness and reduction in stress and anxiety could be highly impactful in creating a safer workplace. These methods will also help derive biometric maps of physician activities that could be used for a variety of physician wellness interventions. The impact of this study could be wide reaching in occupational health.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Terminated
• Enrollment: 25
• Est. completion date: February 27, 2020
• Est. primary completion date: February 27, 2020
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 65 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• GW residents, physicians, medical students, and nurses between the ages of 18-65.

• will have at least 5 shifts over the study period in the GW Hospital

Exclusion Criteria:

• Unable to consent to study due to cognitive difficulty

• Current diagnosis of epilepsy, dementia, or other neurological disease that may prevent use of VR hardware and software

• Sensitivity to flashing light or motion

• Pregnancy, or a medical condition where the participant is prone to frequent nausea or dizziness

• Recent stroke

• Injury to the eyes, face, neck, or arms that prevents comfortable use of VR hardware or software, or safe use of the hardware (e.g., open sores, wounds, or skin rash on face)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Burnout, Professional

Intervention

Other:
• Virtual Reality Headset with curated content
clinicians will wear VR immersive headset for up to 15 minutes during their break

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	GW Hospital	Washington	District of Columbia

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
George Washington University

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (5)

Alhola P, Polo-Kantola P. Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2007;3(5):553-67. — View Citation

Dascal J, Reid M, IsHak WW, Spiegel B, Recacho J, Rosen B, Danovitch I. Virtual Reality and Medical Inpatients: A Systematic Review of Randomized, Controlled Trials. Innov Clin Neurosci. 2017 Feb 1;14(1-2):14-21. eCollection 2017 Jan-Feb. Review. — View Citation

Han T, Nag A, Simorangkir RBVB, Afsarimanesh N, Liu H, Mukhopadhyay SC, Xu Y, Zhadobov M, Sauleau R. Multifunctional Flexible Sensor Based on Laser-Induced Graphene. Sensors (Basel). 2019 Aug 9;19(16). pii: E3477. doi: 10.3390/s19163477. — View Citation

Langelotz C, Scharfenberg M, Haase O, Schwenk W. Stress and heart rate variability in surgeons during a 24-hour shift. Arch Surg. 2008 Aug;143(8):751-5. doi: 10.1001/archsurg.143.8.751. — View Citation

Smith-Coggins R, Howard SK, Mac DT, Wang C, Kwan S, Rosekind MR, Sowb Y, Balise R, Levis J, Gaba DM. Improving alertness and performance in emergency department physicians and nurses: the use of planned naps. Ann Emerg Med. 2006 Nov;48(5):596-604, 604.e1-3. Epub 2006 May 2. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Psycho-motor Vigilance Testing (PVT)	response time measure of alertness using PVT software	PVT will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months
Secondary	Alertness	Self Reported level of alertness using 10 point Likert scale	Alertness will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months
Secondary	Stress	Self Reported level of stress using 10 point Likert scale	Stress will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months
Secondary	Anxiety	Self Reported level of anxiety using 10 point Likert scale	Anxiety will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months