VR Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

NCT ID: NCT04132141

Last Updated: 2021-12-14

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

TERMINATED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

25 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2019-09-23

Study Completion Date

2020-02-27

Brief Summary

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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.

Detailed Description

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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.

Conditions

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Burnout, Professional

Study Design

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Allocation Method

NA

Intervention Model

SINGLE_GROUP

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.
Primary Study Purpose

OTHER

Blinding Strategy

NONE

all data is collected by the Research assistant and de-identified. The investigator will not know which data belongs to which participant

Study Groups

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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

Group Type OTHER

Virtual Reality Headset with curated content

Intervention Type OTHER

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

Interventions

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Virtual Reality Headset with curated content

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

Intervention Type OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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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)
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

65 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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George Washington University

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Neal Sikka

Associate Professor

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

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Neal K Sikka, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

George Washington University

Locations

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GW Hospital

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

Site Status

Countries

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United States

References

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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.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 17052562 (View on PubMed)

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

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 19300585 (View on PubMed)

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.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 28386517 (View on PubMed)

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.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 31395810 (View on PubMed)

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.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 18711034 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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051818

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id