Groggy, dazed and confused: The impact of anticipating an important task when on-call on sleep inertia

Introduction: On-call scheduling is used in occupations to respond to emergency situations and results in workers’ obtaining reduced sleep. Reduced sleep can increase the magnitude and duration of sleep inertia, the hypo-vigilant state experienced upon waking, resulting in impairments to cognitive performance. This study investigated how anticipation of performing an important task, upon waking, impacts performance when on-call.