Citation

Antoun M, Edwards KM, Sweeting J, Ding D. PLoS One 2017; 12(10): e0185517.

Affiliation

Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of Public Health, the University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0185517

PMID

29036199

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The experience of driving has been suggested to be detrimental to health. One hypothesis is that each exposure elicits an acute stress response, and that repeated exposures may act as a chronic stressor.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this review is to evaluate and synthesise the evidence on whether driving elicits an acute physiological stress response.

METHODS: Electronic databases, including CINAHL, PsycINFO and Medline, were searched for original articles written in English from database inception until March 2016. The inclusion criteria of this review included a quantitative examination of an acute physiological stress response to driving, in either on-road or simulated settings, compared to a comparison or control condition. This review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) reporting criteria.

RESULTS: A total of 27,295 abstracts were screened and 28 full-text manuscripts retrieved. Of these, seven articles met the inclusion criteria including four simulator studies and three on-road studies. All suggested a significant change in at least one physiological outcome, but the strongest evidence was for increases in urine catecholamine and cortisol after driving for long hours on-road; results on other outcomes are limited by the small number of studies or inconsistent findings.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these studies provided moderate evidence to suggest that driving for long hours elicits a stress response over an extended period of time. There is insufficient evidence that driving for a shorter period of time elicits an acute stress response, especially in real, on-road tasks. However, the limited number of studies, small sample sizes, heterogeneity in study objectives, methodologies and physiological outcomes limit conclusions. Future studies could be improved by recruiting a larger sample, utilizing modern stress markers such as heart rate variability, and primarily focusing on the acute physiological stress response to on-road driving.

Language: en