VR Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

Study Overview
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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.

Official Title
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Effect of Immersive Virtual Reality Breaks on Shift-worker Alertness

Conditions
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Burnout, Professional

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Virtual Reality Headset with curated content


Participation Criteria
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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)

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 65 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Other
Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Interventional Model Description: 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.
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Other: VR intervention<br>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<br>* clinicians will wear VR immersive headset for up to 15 minutes during their break<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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 Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alertness | Self Reported level of alertness using 10 point Likert scale | Alertness will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months | 
| Stress | Self Reported level of stress using 10 point Likert scale | Stress will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months | 
| Anxiety | Self Reported level of anxiety using 10 point Likert scale | Anxiety will be collected in each study shift and compared at the end of the study period about 4 months |