Search

An individual's capacity to anticipate working schedules and to set up coping mechanisms is investigated. Anticipatory responses, rather than compensatory responses, are given more emphasis because they reveal more of the worker's ability to cope with the temporal challenges of shift systems. Generally, people who are well-adapted to their shift schedules have a more regular choice of sleep onsettimes.

The day- and shiftworkers' of two Brazilian petrochemical plants are studied for the way their leisure time are spent. Results show that shiftworkers and dayworkers have significant differences on almost all frequencies of the 14 most commonly mentioned leisure activities. Moreover, the two most mentioned activities are meals with the family and home television viewing. However, the results of the data analyses are not sufficient to conclude anything.