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Implementing a Sleep Health Education and Sleep Disorders Screening Program in Fire Departments: A Comparison of
Laura K Barger1, Conor S O'Brien, Shantha M W Rajaratnam
1Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital (Dr Barger, Mr O'Brien, Dr Rajaratnam, Mr Qadri, Mr Sullivan, Dr Wang, Dr Czeisler, Dr Lockley); Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (Drs Barger, Rajaratnam, Wang, Czeisler, Lockley); and School of Psychological Sciences and Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, Monash University, Australia (Drs Rajaratnam and Lockley).
Objective:
The objective of this study is to compare three methods of administering a sleep health program (SHP) in fire departments.
Methods:
An SHP, comprising sleep health education and screening for common sleep disorders, was implemented in eight fire departments using three approaches: expert-led, train-the-trainer, and online. Participation rates, knowledge assessments, surveys, and focus group interviews were analyzed to assess the reach and effectiveness of the methodologies.
Results:
The Expert-led SHP had the highest participation rate, greatest improvement in knowledge scores, and prompted more firefighters to seek clinical sleep disorder evaluations (41%) than the other approaches (20 to 25%). Forty-two percent of focus group participants reported changing their sleep behaviors.
Conclusion:
All approaches yielded reasonable participation rates, but expert-led programs had the greatest reach and effectiveness in educating and screening firefighters for sleep disorders.
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