Offshore Worker Compliance, Perceived Utility, Effectiveness, and Feasibility of Daily Fatigue Assessments over Four Weeks in the Gulf of Mexico

Occupational Applications: We conducted a study on offshore drillships in the Gulf of Mexico that captured daily compliance rates with various fatigue assessments over four weeks—a Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT), actigraphy, physiological monitoring, and surveys. We obtained worker perceptions of these assessments’ utility, effectiveness, and feasibility. Each fatigue assessment had a good overall compliance rate (>80%) over the four weeks but declined when the assessment was self-administered. Our interview findings revealed that actigraphy was the preferred means of monitoring their sleep to manage fatigue compared to physiological sensors. Workers also perceived PVT outcomes to be useful, but the duration (∼10 min) was the biggest barrier to continued use. From these findings, we generated research-to-practice recommendations on effective and sustainable fatigue assessments in offshore shiftwork: (1) periodic use of actigraphy watches to monitor sleep time and efficiency and (2) implementation of a short 3- or 5-min PVT on an electronic device.