VR Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

Effect of Immersive Virtual Reality Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Terminated
• Conditions: Burnout, Professional
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Virtual Reality Headset with curated content

Detailed 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.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 25
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • District of Columbia
    • Washington, District of Columbia, United States, 20037
      • GW Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

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)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Other: VR intervention; each subject will be own control. subjects breaks will be randomly assigned to VR or WT until they complete 3 for each type or a total of 6	Other: Virtual Reality Headset with curated content; clinicians will wear VR immersive headset for up to 15 minutes during their break

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
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 Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
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
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
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

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: George Washington University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Neal K Sikka, MD, George Washington University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• 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.
• 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. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.02.005. Epub 2006 May 2.
• Alhola P, Polo-Kantola P. Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2007;3(5):553-67.
• 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):3477. doi: 10.3390/s19163477.
• 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.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 23, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): February 27, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): February 27, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 15, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 16, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): October 18, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 14, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 30, 2021
• Last Verified: November 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Stress, Psychological; Occupational Stress; Occupational Diseases; Burnout, Psychological; Burnout, Professional
• Other Study ID Numbers: 051818

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No