Evidencing the Applicability of Physiological Monitoring For Health Management within Occupational Settings: Protocol for a Systematic Review

Background: The resulting interaction between occupational stress and individual susceptibility to illness demands careful management. This represents a dual challenge to organizations responsible for the well-being of personnel who engage in strenuous physical exertion, imposing requirements to be vigilant for, or even curtail, situations that may result in high physiological strain in healthy personnel and also to identify and protect vulnerable individuals. The emergence of wearable physiological and medical monitoring technologies could prove advantageous in this regard. Objectives: A systematic review is proposed to summarize current progress in the development of physiological monitoring systems for occupational applications. Thus, adhering with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) Statement, this systematic review protocol aims to present adequate guidelines to develop research that can provide appropriate results to the sought objective. Data sources: Five databases will be accessed (SCOPUS, PubMed, Science Direct, Academic Search Complete and Web of Science) and a total of 12 keywords will be combined. Study eligibility and criteria: Working-age study participants will be included. Assessment procedures will be considered when they do not interfere with normal tasks development and involve harmless procedures for participants. Study appraisal and synthesis methods: Two authors will independently screen titles and abstracts against the eligibility criteria at first, and full-texts of potentially eligible records at a second phase, followed by extraction of data from qualifying studies. Two review authors will also assess the risk of bias and the quality of evidence, taking as a reference the Cochrane Collaboration’s Tool.