![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
National Guard personnel remain largely unstudied within the sleep research community, despite their unique and important role. In response, the purpose of this study was to investigate the extent of sleep deprivation in National Guard medical personnel from two separate Air Force Bases (AFBs) responding to simulated disaster-training exercises. National Guard medical personnel (N = 77) were fitted with wrist activity monitors (actigraphy) to objectively measure their sleep for 4 days of their civilian time (baseline), followed by a 4-day transition period from civilian to military duty, and a 3–5-day disaster-training exercise. Differences in sleep quantity, quality, and “cognitive effectiveness” were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Participants’ sleep quantity was significantly reduced from civilian to disaster-training periods, and their cognitive effectiveness also dropped significantly. National Guard medical personnel were sleep-deprived during a simulated disaster-training exercise, which, although a valid proxy for real-world disasters, is likely to be a conservative approximation of the stress and fatigue National Guard personnel experience during crisis response. As such, the need for targeted fatigue-related interventions to safeguard our service members during these critical times is clear.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Disclaimer
The information of content and conclusions do not necessarily represent the official position or policy of, nor should any official endorsement be inferred by, the TriService Nursing Research program, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Department of Defense, or the US Government.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Degrees of freedom vary based on differing numbers of participants across exercises (because of availability), as well as some compliance issues with wearing the bands (resulting in missing data).