Psychophysiological Stress Assessment among On-Duty Firefighters

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2018

Authors

Susana Rodrigues (Author) Other; Duarte Dias (Author) Other; Joana S. Paiva (Author) Other; João P. S. Cunha (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: 40th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2018, Honolulu, HI, USA, July 18-21, 2018

Pages: 4335-4338

Indexing

Scopus - 11 Citations

INSPEC

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00P-VXA

DOI: 10.1109/embc.2018.8513250

Abstract (EN): Firefighting is a hazardous profession commonly exposed to high stress that can interfere with firefighter's health and performance. Nevertheless, on-duty stress levels quantitative evaluations are very rare in the literature. In order to investigate firefighters' occupational health in terms of stress perceptions, symptoms, and quantified physiological reactions under real-world conditions, an ambulatory assessment protocol was developed. Therefore, cardiac signal from firefighters (N =6) was continuously monitored during two shifts within a working week with a medical clinically certified equipment (VitalJacket®), allowing continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) and actigraphy measurement. Psychological data were collected with an android application, collecting potential stressful events, stress symptoms, and stress appraisal. A total of 130 hours of medical-quality ECG were collected, from which heart rate variability (HRV) metrics were extracted and analyzed. Statistical significant differences were found in some HRV metrics - AVNN, RMSSD, pNN50 and LF/HF - between events and non-events, showing higher levels of physiological stress during events (p<0.05). Stress symptoms increase from the beginning to the end of the shift (from 1.54 ± 0.52 to 2.01 ± 0.73), however the mean stress self-perception of events was very low (3.22 ± 2.38 in a scale ranging from 0 to 10). Negative and strong correlations were also found between stress symptoms and some time-domain ECG measures (AVNN, SDNN and pNN50). It can be concluded that stress may not always be detected when using merely self-reports. These results enhance the importance of combining both self-report and ambulatory high-quality physiological stress measures in occupational health settings. Future studies should investigate not only what causes stress but also its impact on health and well-being of these professionals, in order to contribute to the design of efficient stress-management interventions. © 2018 IEEE.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 4