Work Fatigue Among Air Personnel: Protocol for Fatigue Intervention Program (FIP) and Quasi Experimental Study

Main Article Content

Victor C W Hoe
Kamesh Rajendran
Mahmoud Danaee
Mohd Asghar Khan Goriman Khan
Mohammed Haizar Haron
Omar Dawami
Muhammad Taha Hamdan
Mohd Khairol Fadly Abu Bakar
Faizul Hussien Dato Ismail
Zulazri Ibrahim
Paranjothi Manogharan
Tzai Meng Onn
Ravin Vijayan
Hari Prasad Rao Ramarao
Saifulsyahira Jaaman
Nurul Hani Shamsuddin
Umashankar Subramanian
Priya Nandimath
Mohd Shahril Abu Hanifah
Balwant Singh Bains
Mina Pushpanathan
Siti Nuraini Hassan
Rosli Kolob

Abstract

Introduction: Work fatigue is common in air and ground crew since they have prolonged working hours. Work fatigue is excessive tiredness and decreased function during or after work. Fatigue can also affect sleep quality. Despite work fatigue causing disproportionately significant psychosocial dangers, limited studies have developed an intervention program. Thus, this study will develop a Fatigue Intervention Program (FIP) and evaluate its effectiveness in reducing air and ground crew fatigue. Methods: The FIP was developed after literature review and expert’s evaluation. This is a quasi-experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of FIP. One east Malaysia base will be the intervention arm and one west Malaysia base will be the control arm. Each arm will comprise of 61 participants for a total of N=122. Work fatigue (primary outcome) and sleep quality (secondary outcome) will be evaluated using Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaires respectively. Baseline, post-inter­vention, post one-month, and post three-month assessments will be done for both arms. Data will be described by percentages, frequencies, and mean. Time and group interaction effects will be examined using General Estimating Equation. Discussion: Five experts gave a Content Validity Index of 0.90 to 1.00 for relevancy, clarity, adequacy, and agreeability in the evaluation of the FIP. Enrolment will take one month and data collection three months. The FIP is expected to reduce the domains of MFI such as reduced motivation, reduced activity, general, physical and mental fatigue. The FIP is also expected improve the PSQI domains; duration of sleep, days dysfunction due to sleepiness, sleep disturbance, efficiency, latency, and quality. Trial Registration: The study has been registered in Thai Clinical Trials Registry with approval number TCTR20221004004.

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How to Cite
Hoe, V. C. W., Rajendran, K., Danaee, M., Goriman Khan, M. A. K., Haron, M. H., Dawami, O., Hamdan, M. T., Abu Bakar, M. K. F., Dato Ismail, F. H., Ibrahim, Z., Manogharan, P., Onn, T. M., Vijayan, R., Ramarao, H. P. R., Jaaman, S., Shamsuddin, N. H., Subramanian, U., Nandimath, P., Abu Hanifah, M. S., Bains, B. S., Pushpanathan, M., Hassan, S. N., & Kolob, R. (2024). Work Fatigue Among Air Personnel: Protocol for Fatigue Intervention Program (FIP) and Quasi Experimental Study. Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 20(2), 366–373. https://doi.org/10.47836/mjmhs.20.2.46
Section
Study Protocol

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