Sleep in a Gymnasium: A Study to Examine the Psychophysiological and Environmental Conditions in Shelter-Analogue Settings

Abstract

We aimed to examine sleep in shelter-analogue settings to determine the sleep and environmental conditions in evacuation shelters. A summer social/educational event was conducted in an elementary school, wherein children and their parents (n = 109) spent one night in the school gymnasium; a total of 15 children and 7 adults completed the study. Data were recording using wrist actigraphy and questionnaires, from two days before the event to two days after the event. During the night in the gymnasium, sleep initiation in the children was found to be significantly delayed, whereas adults did not show any significant change in actigraphic sleep parameters. Although 57% of adults complained of stiffness of the floor, only 7% of children had the same complaint. The nocturnal noise recorded at four locations in the gymnasium showed that the percentage of 1-min data epochs with a noise level >40 dB ranged from 53% to 74% during lights-out. The number of subjects that woke up during the night showed a similar pattern with the changes in the noise level. The changes in sleep might represent event-specific responses, such as to a noisy environment, and the different complaints between adults and children could be useful in shelter management.

Evaluation of Sleep Quality in a Disaster Evacuee Environment

“…The present study confirmed that an experimentally recreated sleep environment of an evacuation shelter and a car seat can cause disturbed sleep in healthy young adults. The strength of this study was that sleep was evaluated objectively by measuring EEG, in contrast to previous studies that evaluated sleep with an actigraph or questionnaire [11,12]. The results that WASO had increased in the intervention trials were consistent with a previous study finding that WASO increased as measured by actigraph under conditions recreating the sleep environment of an There was no significant difference in the fasting glucose levels and the average value of ∆G among trials (Table 4).…”

“…One limitation of the present study is that it considered the thermal environment but not noise. The study of sleep in the gymnasium was measured by actigraph, suggesting that noise delayed sleep onset and increased WASO [12]. A real-world situation would be very harsh due to the fact that an actual evacuation shelter would contain many people, and the level of noise would be much higher.…”

“…Mochizuki et al reported that sleep efficiency and sleeping time decreased significantly when using disaster blankets in the recreated situation of evacuation shelters in winter [11]. Mizuno et al reported that nocturnal noise levels >40 dB ranged from 53% to 74% in a gymnasium, and the pattern of changes in the noise level was similar to the pattern of subjects' inability to maintain sleep during the night [12]. Based on these findings, the sleep environment is also an important factor associated with the quality of sleep in an evacuation shelter.…”