Dados do Trabalho

Título

Sleep of military police officers: comparison between an objective and a subjective measurement to determine sleep patterns

Introdução

Shift workers are more susceptible to sleep restrictions, since working hours cause changes in sleeping and waking times. Instruments that assess sleep patterns in shift workers are used to better investigate these characteristics.

Objetivo

To compare objective and subjective measurements related to sleep among military police officers who are shift workers in the city of Rio Branco, Acre.

Métodos

This was a cross-sectional study involving 31 male military police officers who worked alternating shifts of 12 hours on daytime, 24 hours off, 12 hours on nighttime, and 72 hours off. Start and end times, duration, and half phase of sleep were measured subjectively using the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire for shift workers (MCTQshift). In order to measure the same parameters objectively, actimetry was used for 14 consecutive days, including two work cycles. The obtained subjective and objective data were compared using Pearson’s or Spearman’s correlation tests, considering the distribution of the data. The significance level was p<0.05. The statistical program used was Jamovi software.

Resultados

The end times of sleep through the objective and subjective measurements were approximately 1 hour later after day (6:57±1:24 vs. 05:54±1:03) and night shifts (12:18±01:55 vs. 11:00±03:15). The total duration of sleep assessed by actigraphy on the day shift was 40 minutes longer than that reported by the participants (7:09±01:36 vs. 06:20±01:33). For days off, the objective total duration of sleep was 50 minutes less than that reported in the Munich Questionnaire (06:12±01:18 vs. 07:01±01:31). The half phase of sleep differed between the objective and subjective measurements for the day (16:06±03:02 vs. 20:24±01:44) and night shifts (07:28±03:28 vs. 08:06±01:52). Most police officers were characterized as early chronotypes (51.6%). In addition, a weak and statistically significant correlation was observed for end time (r=0.38; p=0.031), duration (r=0.38; p= 0.032), and half phase (r=0.36; p= 0.041) of sleep only in the day shift.

Conclusões

The comparison between the objective and subjective sleep measurement instruments demonstrated a correlation for the end times, total duration, and half phase of sleep only during the day shift. Nevertheless, caution is needed when using subjective measurements to analyze sleep patterns, since self-observation of sleep-related aspects can differ from actual values.

Palavras -chave

Sleep, shift work, actigraphy.