Sleep disorders and day sleepiness in a population of shift workers of the State Police

Policemen are workers exposed to risk from both shiftwork and delicate tasks. This study aims to investigate sleep habits, prevalence of sleep disturbance, sleepiness and hypnotic drug intake in the whole population of Italian State Policemen working in the Genoa district. Italian literature is completely lacking of such data. The study has been carried out by means self administered and assisted questionnaires. Eighty-five percent of the population accepted and answered the questionnaire. Here we focus on the differences between 540 not-shiftworkers, NS, (413 males, 127 females), and 575 shiftworkers, S, (483 males, 92 females). A higher prevalence of difficulties in falling asleep, sleep-latency longer than 20 min. and early awakenings was found in S. No significative differences in daytime sleepiness and drug intake were found between the two groups. Concerning the self-evaluation of the numbers of hours slept during the night and during the 24 hours a higher quantity of sleep was reported by S. CONCLUSIONS: Data seem to indicate a low quality of sleep in S without any evidence of increased daytime sleepiness or increased hypnotic drugs assumption. Shiftworkers seem to compensate their poor quality of sleep with a greater amount of time spent sleeping in the 24 hour period. Such a condition could be the expression of a prolonged recovery from the shift effects.