Psychosocial Aspects of Split Shift in Professionals

The present study emphasized the problems encountered by professional engineers who operate in split shifts. There is a significant gap in the psychosocial components which consists of mental, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of a person professionals’ life functioning. Sleep deprivation affect professionals’ capacity to work and can lead to burnout. It has been noticed how sleep deprivation might impair a person’s life, particularly his ability to work. Most participants were afraid that their families were being ignored, and that despite all of their efforts on their behalf, they were emotionally and physically inaccessible to them. A phenomenological study design was used in this study. A sample of six people with at least two years of experience working in split shifts was taken in this study. The demographic information sheet included age, education, work experience, salary, marital status, financial status, family system, and birth order. The result showed that due to work in split shifts people face a lot of health problems as well as psychological issues such as anger and frustration. Major setback of working in shifts is the disturbance of sleep cycle as most of the participant stated that their routine of sleep cannot be set as some of them were working in shift schedule of three nights and three days. This study also highlighted about importance of family support as almost every participant said that they can only work in shifts because of support of family specially spouse. They are earning well but not satisfied with their jobs