Effects of Cooling Vests on Heat Strain Indicators and Reaction Time while Wearing Protective Clothing Against Chemical, Microbial, and Radioactive Contamination in Hot and Dry Laboratory Conditions

This study aimed to investigate the effects of cooling vests on heat strain and reaction time while wearing protective clothing against chemical, biological, and radioactive contamination.
Twelve male students with the mean age of 25 ± 2 years and mean body mass index (BMI) of 23.0 ± 1.5 kg/m2 were recruited in this experiment. Each student was asked to run on a treadmill at a speed of 2.4 km/h for 20 minutes. The experiments were performed at 35 °C and 30% relative humidity. Physiological strain index score, oral temperature, heart rate, reaction time, and number of errors were measured at the end of the two phases. The findings were analyzed by SPSS.
According to Wilcoxon test, exercising with and without the cooling vest resulted in significantly different physiological strain index scores (P = 0.02), oral temperature (P = 0.02), reaction time (P = 0.02), heart rate (P = 0.02), and errors (P = 0.03). The mean physiological strain index score was 4.038 ± 0.882 without the cooling vest and 1.42 ± 0.435 with the cooling vest. The mean reaction times with and without the cooling vest were 0.539 ± 0.977 and 0.769 ± 0.0972, respectively.
The results of this study showed that using a cooling vest reduced the physiological strain, reaction time, and error rates in workers.