Participatory approaches to strategy and research in shift work intervention

Abstract

Participation and alterations of shift schedules from a health and safety perspective are in focus. The paper elucidates the questions concerning what participatory approaches in particular have to give to the design of shift schedules and whether special conditions in shift schedule designing give participatory intervention approaches a special relevance. Reviewing intervention studies in shift work uncovers that a participatory approach is emphasized in several papers but only seldom descriptions of the participatory processes as pre-conditions, stages and dynamics are found. A specific participatory approach is appraised, and examples of general research operationalizations are provided, but it is underlined that it has to take place according to the organizational context of the intervention. In conclusion, it is assessed that shift work contains special issues like differences in attitudes and interests among the employees, negative adaptation, interplay between work time and social time that makes the potentials of participatory intervention research particularly applicable in changing shift schedules.