Sleep-related problems in the US working population: prevalence and association with shiftwork status

Sep 10, 2016Occupational and environmental medicine

Sleep problems and their link to shift work in US workers

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Abstract

The prevalence of short sleep duration is 37.6% among US workers, with night shift workers experiencing the highest rates at 61.8%.

Night shift workers report a prevalence of poor sleep quality at 30.7%, significantly higher than the overall rate of 19.2%.
Impaired activities of daily living (ADL) are reported by 24.8% of workers, with night shift workers showing a prevalence of 36.2%.
Insomnia affects 8.8% of the overall workforce, but this rate increases to 18.5% among night shift workers.
Multivariate analysis indicates that night shift workers have a higher likelihood of experiencing various sleep problems.

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OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of a comprehensive set of self-reported sleep problems by job characteristics, including shiftwork status, among a representative sample of US workers.

METHODS: Data for 6338 workers aged ≥18 years were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Short sleep duration was defined as <7 hours per weekday/workday. Sleep quality was categorised as good, moderate and poor based on the frequency of 6 sleep-related symptoms. A sleep-related activities of daily living (ADL) score ≥2 was defined as impaired. Insomnia was defined as having poor sleep quality and impaired ADL. Shiftwork status was categorised as daytime, night, evening, rotating or another schedule. Prevalence rates were calculated and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used.

RESULTS: The prevalence of short sleep duration (37.6% overall) was highest among night shift workers (61.8%; p<0.001). The prevalence of poor sleep quality was 19.2% among all workers, with the highest prevalence among night shift workers (30.7%, p=0.004). The prevalence of impaired ADL score (24.8% overall) and insomnia (8.8% overall) was also highest for night shift workers (36.2%, p=0.001 and 18.5%, p=0.013, respectively). In multivariate analysis, night shift workers had the highest likelihood of these sleep problems.

CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, impaired ADL score and insomnia are common among US workers especially among night shift workers. Although these findings should be confirmed with objective sleep measures, they support the need for intervention programmes to improve sleep quantity and quality among night shift workers.

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Sleep-related problems in the US working population: prevalence and association with shiftwork status

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