Sleep disorders and daytime sleepiness in state police shiftworkers

Police, who work shifts, participate in both risky and delicate tasks. The authors investigated sleep habits, prevalence of sleep disorders, sleepiness on the job, and hypnotic drug intake (Benzodiazepines, Zaleplon, Zolpidem, or Zoplicone) in a population of Italian state police officers. This study was conducted with self-administered questionnaires. The investigation focused on the difference between 540 non-shiftworkers (413 males, 127 females) and 575 shiftworkers (483 males, 92 females). All individuals were between 20 yr and 39 yr of age. In shiftworkers, there was a higher prevalence of difficulty in initiating sleep; in addition, these individuals had a sleep latency that exceeded 20 min, and they experienced early awakenings. No significant differences in daytime sleepiness and drug intake existed between the 2 groups. Self-evaluation of the number of hours that individuals slept each night and during a 24-hr period revealed that shiftworkers required more sleep. The results indicated that shiftworkers experienced a lower quality of sleep than non-shiftworkers, but the former did not report increased daytime sleepiness or increased hypnotic drug intake (i.e., Benzodiazepines, Zaleplon, Zolpidem, or Zoplicone). Shiftworkers seemed to compensate for the poor quality of their sleep by sleeping for a greater number of hours during 24-hr periods than the non-shiftworkers. Perhaps the aforementioned compensation resulted from a prolonged recovery from shiftwork effects.