title: Effects of elevation change on mental stress in high-voltage transmission tower construction workers.
abstract: High-voltage transmission tower construction is a high-risk operation due to the construction site locations, extreme climatic factors, elevated working surfaces, and narrow working space. To comprehensively enhance our understanding of the psychophysiological phenomena of workers in extremely high tower constructions, we carried out a series of field experiments to test and compare three working surface heights in terms of frequency-domain heart rate variability (HRV) measurements. Twelve experienced male workers participated in this experiment. The dependent variables, namely, heart rate (HR), normalized low-frequency power (nLF), normalized high-frequency power (nHF), and LF-to-HF power ratio (LF/HF), were measured with the Polar RS800CX heart rate monitor. The experimental results indicated that the task workload was similar between working surface heights. Tower construction workers perceived an increased level of mental stress as working surface height increased.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Feng-Wen
authors.initials: FW
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chiuhsiang Joe
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yung-Hui
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan. Electronic address: g9302405@cycu.org.tw.
authors.forename: Hung-Jen
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000531:Altitude; D060389:Construction Industry; D004559:Electric Wiring; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D017132:Workplace
keywords: Heart rate variability; High-voltage transmission tower; Working surface height