VR Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

NCT04132141 | Terminated

• 1 other identifier: 051818
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 25
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief 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.

Conditions

Burnout, Professional

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• 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 Outcomes (3)

• Alertness

  Alertness will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months

• Stress

  Stress will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months

• Anxiety

  Anxiety will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months

Study Arms (1)

VR intervention

OTHER

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

Interventions

Virtual Reality Headset with curated content OTHER

clinicians will wear VR immersive headset for up to 15 minutes during their break

VR intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 65 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• 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

You may not qualify if:

• 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)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• George Washington University: lead

Study Sites (1)

GW Hospital

Washington D.C., District of Columbia, 20037, United States

Location

Related Publications (5)

• 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.

  PMID: 17052562 BACKGROUND

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

  PMID: 19300585 BACKGROUND

• 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.

  PMID: 28386517 BACKGROUND

• 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.

  PMID: 31395810 BACKGROUND

• 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.

  PMID: 18711034 BACKGROUND

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Burnout, Professional

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Occupational Stress; Occupational Diseases; Burnout, Psychological; Stress, Psychological; Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior

Study Officials

• Neal K Sikka, MD

  George Washington University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Masking Details: all data is collected by the Research assistant and de-identified. The investigator will not know which data belongs to which participant
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Associate Professor

Model Details: Each recruited subject completes 6 shifts with observation. Half the shifts have normal or wild type breaks, the other half are virtual reality breaks. The order is random.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: October 15, 2019
• First Posted: October 18, 2019
• Study Start: September 23, 2019
• Primary Completion: February 27, 2020
• Study Completion: February 27, 2020
• Last Updated: December 14, 2021

Record last verified: 2021-11

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)