title: Radiology reading-caused fatigue and measurement of eye strain with critical flicker fusion frequency.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to investigate eye fatigue that could impair diagnostic accuracy by measuring the critical flicker fusion frequency (CFFF) before and after reading.
  
  
  METHODS
  CFFF was measured before and after about 4 h of health checkup reading in seven healthy volunteer radiologists. A questionnaire was also completed on duration of sleep the night before the experiment, average duration of sleep, and subjective fatigue using a visual analog scale (corrected to a 0-1 scale, 0 indicating the worst fatigue ever experienced).
  
  
  RESULTS
  After-reading subjective fatigue was significantly greater (before 0.52 ± 0.15, after 0.42 ± 0.15), and CFFF was significantly lower (before 40.9 ± 2.4, after 39.9 ± 2.0). There was no significant correlation between subjective fatigue and CFFF, either before or after or between before- and after-reading differences in subjective fatigue and CFFF. Shorter duration of sleep the night before significantly correlated with lower CFFF (Pearson's correlation coefficient): before 0.42, P = 0.0047; after 0.52, P = 0.0003.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CFFF declines after reading and can be considered useful as an indicator of fatigue induced by radiology reading. CFFF declines significantly when sleep is reduced the day before reading without correlation with subjective fatigue, meaning that sleep deprivation can cause an unaware decline in visual function.
authors: Department of Radiology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan. emaeda-tky@umin.ac.jp
authors: Eriko
authors: E
authors: Maeda
authors: Takeharu
authors: T
authors: Yoshikawa
authors: Naoto
authors: N
authors: Hayashi
authors: Hiroyuki
authors: H
authors: Akai
authors: Shouhei
authors: S
authors: Hanaoka
authors: Hiroki
authors: H
authors: Sasaki
authors: Izuru
authors: I
authors: Matsuda
authors: Naoki
authors: N
authors: Yoshioka
authors: Kuni
authors: K
authors: Ohtomo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D005221:Fatigue / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005425:Flicker Fusion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011871:Radiology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D014787:Vision Tests; D014940:Work Schedule Tolerance; D016526:Workload