Police officers “serve and protect us”, and we are certainly thankful for all the hard work they do. It’s a tough job, they work long and varied hours of shift work. In addition to these challenging shift work hours, sadly they often see a lot of us when we are at our lowest or less than ideal of moments. All too often we forget about the stress the job and its hours of work has on our officers wellbeing, but what about their sleep quality? We in the sleep unit know all too well how poor sleep can affect cognitive performance, mood and motor skills (eg driving).
In 2011, Dr. Charles Czeisler (director of the sleep medicine division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston) et al. screened nearly 5000 officers in the USA and Canada for sleep disorders. What they found was that up to 40% of them had a sleep disorder. Of those with a sleep disorder, they found that 58% had an increased risk of falling asleep while driving, a 23 percent greater risk of occupational injury and a 76% increase in safety violations. Also, an officer with a sleep disorder had a 21% increased risk of expressing uncontrolled anger towards a suspect or member of the public and had a 24% risk of receiving a citizen complaint against them. They were also 24% more likely to experience absenteeism, and were 39% more likely to make a major administrative error while on duty.
While this study is a few years old, we do know how shift work and sleep disorders can impact on the quality of ones sleep and reduce all the good benefits that a good night sleep can give us. Our brave officers have a hard enough job as it is, we can only hope that if officers have or suspect they have a sleep disorder to seek and comply with therapy. It’s certainly in the best interest of the police department, the general public and most importantly; the officers themselves and their families.
Reference: Shantha M.W., Laura K. Barger, Steven W. Lockley, Steven A. Shea, Wei Wang, Christopher P. Landrigan, Conor S. O’Brien, Salim Qadri, Jason P. Sullivan, Brian E. Cade, Lawrence J. Epstein, David P. White, and Charles A. Czeisler, “Sleep Disorders, Health, and Safety in Police Officers” Exit Notice, JAMA 306 (2011): 2567-2578.
