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Updated: May 31, 2026

Collecting Sleep, Circadian, Fatigue, and Performance Data in Complex Operational Environments
Published on: August 8, 2019
The effects of age and shiftwork on perceived sleep problems: results from the VISAT combined longitudinal and
Philip Tucker1, S Folkard, D Ansiau
1Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK. p.t.tucker@swan.ac.uk
Objective:
With workforces in industrialized countries getting older, the study examined how shiftworking affects sleep in later life.
Method:
Longitudinal data were collected in 1996, 2001, and 2006 from a large sample of employees who were 32, 42, 52, and 62 years old in 1996.
Results:
Effects of shiftwork were most apparent in middle-aged participants, becoming less apparent in later years when people tended to leave shiftwork. Nevertheless, a group of younger former shiftworkers reported more sleep problems than those who had never worked shifts. Giving up shiftwork offset a trend for sleep problems to accumulate over time, with the net result of no change in sleep problems after cessation of shiftwork.
Conclusions:
Poor sleep quality is a temporary consequence of shiftwork for some, whereas for others it is a cause of shiftwork intolerance.
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