Physical fatigue is a major health and safety related problem among construction workers. Many previous studies relied on interviews and/or questionnaire to assess physical fatigue in construction workers. However, these traditional methods are not only time consuming but also limited by recall bias. To overcome these limitations, many researchers have used physiological metrics (e.g., heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, electromyographic activity, and jerk metrics) to measure real-time physical fatigue. While physiological metrics have shown promising results for realtime assessments of physical fatigue, no state-of-the-art review has been conducted to summarize various physiological metrics in measuring physical fatigue among construction workers. Therefore, the current state-of-the art review aimed to summarize existing evidence regarding the use of physiological metrics to measure physical fatigue of construction workers in real-time. This review used systematic searches to identify relevant studies and critically appraised the application of physiological metrics in measuring physical fatigue of construction workers. First, it summarized the application of various physiological metrics for real-time measurement of physical fatigue in construction workers. Second, various wearable sensing technologies for measuring physiological metrics were identified. Third, this review discussed the potential challenges for applying physiological metrics to measure physical fatigue. Finally, future research directions to advance the development and adoption of various physiological metrics to monitor and mitigate physical fatigue in construction workers were discussed.Anwer S, Li H, Antwi-Afari MF, Umer W, Wong AYL. Evaluation of physiological metrics as a real-time measurement of physical fatigue in construction workers: Stateof-the-Art Reviews. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (Accepted) physiological metrics; (3) discuss potential challenges for using physiological metrics to measure physical fatigue in real-time; and (4) provide future research directions to advance the development and use of various physiological metrics to better monitor and mitigate physical fatigue among construction workers.
Research MethodsThe research method section is divided into three subsections namely: literature search, selection criteria, and data extraction.
Literature SearchThis review used a systematic approach to search relevant articles, and critically appraised the applications and features of different wearable sensing technologies, as well as summarized challenges of using physiological metrics to measure physical fatigue in construction workers. Five electronic databases (i.e., PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Web of Science) were searched from their inception to July 25, 2020. The first four databases contain many fatigue or ergonomic-related publications, while the Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database that contains construction-related journals (Gusenbauer and Haddaway, 2020). F...