Shiftworkers report worse sleep than day workers, even in retirement

Abstract

SUMMARY The aim of this study was to explore how the level of shiftwork exposure during an individual’s working life might be related to subjectively reported sleep quality and timing during retirement. Telephone interviews regarding past employment and sleep timing and quality (among other variables) were conducted using a pseudo-random age-targeted sampling process. Subjective sleep quality was assessed using a telephone version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Timing of reported habitual bedtimes and rise-times were assessed using the Sleep Timing Questionnaire. Questions measuring morningness and subjective health were also given. Retired seniors (aged 65 years+, n=1113) were studied. Analysis was by analysis of variance, with shiftwork exposure in three bins [0 (n=387), 1–15 (n=371) and >15 years (n=355)], gender (n=634 male, 479 female) and former occupation [in two broad categories, ‘managerial’ (n=437) versus ‘other’ (n=676)] as factors. In retired shiftworkers, relative to retired day workers, past exposure to shiftwork was associated with higher (worse) PSQI scores by 0.96 units (1–15 years) and 0.61 units (>15 years) (main effect P=0.005). There were also main effects of gender and former occupation (males and managerials reporting better sleep), but neither variable interacted with shiftwork exposure. The timing of current mean habitual bedtimes and rise-times (and also the variance around them) were very similar for the three shiftwork exposure groups. The shiftwork exposure effect did not appear to be mediated by either morningness or current health. Prior exposure to shiftwork would appear to be related to currently reported sleep problems during retirement.

Association between night-shift work, sleep quality and metabolic syndrome

“…The night-shift workers in the present study reported worse sleep quality compared with non-night-shift workers, consistent with findings from a previous study 31. It is hypothesised that short sleep duration increases body weight and glucose metabolism, whereby short sleep duration is believed to increase ghrelin and decrease leptin concentration, leading to an increase in appetite and weight gain 32.…”

Shift work tolerance and the importance of sleep quality: a study of police officers

“…The extreme difficulty to maintain an adequate sleep-wake function while working in shifts, due to circadian misalignment, is diagnosed as SWSD (Drake et al 2004). Recent studies show that SWSD can be a chronic condition, as evidenced by measurements in retired shift workers (Rotenberg et al 2011;Monk et al 2013). The present results may be interpreted within the view that disturbed sleep is a factor in the causative pathway from shift work to deteriorating health (Puttonen et al 2010;Rajaratnam et al 2013).…”

An unusual circadian rhythm in an active duty service member

“…Our case, combined with the previous 6/12 report [6], suggests that chronic non-circadian military-shift schedules may result in circadian arrhythmia. This further highlights the potential long-term effects of extreme shiftwork on sleep [7,8]. From a clinical perspective, when sleepiness is out of proportion to other findings (i.e.…”