Abstract
Objective:The commute home following a night shift is associated with an increased risk for accidents. This study investigated the relationship between food intake during the night shift and simulated driving performance post-shift.Methods:Healthy non-shift working males (N=23) and females (N=16), aged 18–39 years (mean 24.5, standard deviation 5.0, years) participated in a seven-day laboratory study and underwent four simulated night shifts Participants were randomly allocated to one of three conditions: meal at night (N=12; 7 males), snack at night (N=13; 7 males) or no eating at night (N=14; 9 males). During the night shift at 00:30 hours, participants either ate a large meal (meal at night condition), a snack (snack at night condition), or did not eat during the night shift (no eating at night condition). During the second simulated night shift, participants performed a 40-minute York driving simulation at 20:00, 22:30, 01:30, 04:00, and 07:30 hours (similar time to a commute from work).Results:The effects of eating condition, drive time, and time-on-task, on driving performance were examined using mixed model analyses. Significant condition×time interactions were found, where at 07:30 hours, those in the meal at night condition displayed significant increases in time spent outside of the safe zone (percentage of time spent outside 10 km/hour of the speed limit and 0.8 meters of the lane center; P<0.05), and greater lane and speed variability (both P<0.01) compared to the snack and no eating conditions. There were no differences between the snack and no eating conditions.Conclusion:Driver safety during the simulated commute home is greater following the night shift if a snack, rather than a meal, is consumed during the shift.
Highlights
The commute home following a night shift is a time of great risk for driver safety [1, 2], with shift workers frequently reporting falling asleep at the wheel and experiencing near-misses [3, 4]
This may be due to the increase in homeostatic sleep pressure after being awake for a long period of time overnight [5], which may be exacerbated by the length of the commute [6] and an increase in morning road users at the time of the post-shift commute [7]
This study investigated the impact of eating a meal, snack, or not eating during the night shift on driving performance during a simulated post-night shift commute home
Summary
The study was a seven-day experimental, three-condition, between-group design conducted in the windowless, sound attenuated, and time-isolated Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of South Australia (UniSA). All participants gave written informed consent and the UniSA Research Ethics Committee approved the study (#0000033621), which was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR12615001107516). This manuscript reports secondary outcome data from a larger study and additional measures have been published elsewhere [15, 16]
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