The functional status of forestry industry workers in the Far North during the shift period

Abstract

All over the world, the timber industry is one of the most physically hazardous industries. Working in such conditions is accompanied by an increase in the risk of unfavorable functional states and a critical decrease in professional reliability. Monitoring the workers’ state during the shift period will allow to determine the adaptation degree of personnel to work, as well as to identify the days of the shift arrival with a high risk of injury caused by the unfavorable state of workers.The aim. To identify and describe the functional states dynamics of loggers during the entire shift period in the Far North as their adaptation degree to work.Methods. Objective: collection of saliva for the determination of cortisol, psychophysiological instrumental methods; projective: M. Luscher’s color test; subjective – questionnaire “Well-being. Activity. Mood” by V.А. Doskin et al.; statistical methods: descriptive statistics. The study involved 24 shift workers of a logging enterprise, with whom we conducted daily monitoring of objective, projective and subjective characteristics of their functional state in the morning and evening during a fourteenday shift visit.Results. According to the objective, projective and subjective indicators of functional states, their consistently favorable level is observed with multidirectional peaks during the shift change period and a slight decrease at the end of the shift, which demonstrates the staff’ adaptability to work. The operator performance is somewhat higher in the second half of the shift period, but in general it is below average due to the reduced quality of task performance. An increased free cortisol level was revealed in employees during the entire shift period with a high functional reserves level of the body. During the shift change period, the risks associated with the efficiency and safety of labor increase, which undoubtedly requires consideration by the management of enterprises.

Keywords

• shift work
• functional states dynamics
• working capacity
• stress
• cortisol
• labor safety
• adaptability
• loggers
• performance