Sleeping, sleeping environments, and human errors in South Korean male train drivers

Reducing human errors caused by daytime sleepiness among train drivers is important to prevent train accidents. Our purpose of the study was to investigate the association among sleep, workplace sleeping environments, and human errors.

We recruited 144 South Korean train drivers belongs to the Korean Railroad Corporation. This cross-sectional data was analyzed to investigate the association of insomnia (insomnia severity index), sleep quality (Pittsburgh sleep quality index), obstructive sleep apnea (Berlin questionnaire), and daytime sleepiness (Epworth scale) with human error and near-miss experiences. We examined whether human error and near-miss events were associated with various sleeping environments at work and at home after adjusting for the sleep indices.

The experience of human errors was associated with insomnia and daytime sleepiness, and near-miss events were associated with insomnia among South Korean drivers. Sleeping environments including cold temperature and odor were related to both human errors and near-miss events among South Korean train drivers, after adjusted for age, working years, shiftwork, obesity, smoking, binge drinking, regular exercise, caffeine consumption, sleep quality, severity of insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, and daytime sleepiness.

The train drivers' workplace sleeping environment is significantly associated with human error events and near-miss events after adjusting for sleep quality, insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, and daytime sleepiness. To prevent train accidents caused by human errors, more attention is necessary for improving workplace sleeping environments.