Association between sleep disorders and shift work: a prospective cohort study in the Chinese petroleum industry

Abstract

Objective. This study aimed to understand the prevalence of sleep disorders among shift workers and analyze the relationship between sleep disorders and shift work. Methods. Baseline data were collected from subjects who were then followed for 2 years in a prospective cohort study. The cohort ultimately included 2453 people starting in May 2013, and follow-up with questionnaires was performed in July 2014 and October 2015. Sleep disorders were assessed with the Pittsburgh sleep quality index. Results. The risk of sleep disorders among two-shift workers (relative risk [RR] = 1.318, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.025, 1.695]), three-shift workers (RR = 1.326, 95% CI [1.048, 1.679]) and four-shift workers (RR = 1.334, 95% CI [1.062, 1.675]) was higher than that among non-shift workers, and an increasing trend was observed in sleep disorders as the number of shifts increased. Conclusions. Shift workers have a higher incidence of sleep disorders than non-shift workers. An increasing linear trend was observed between the number of shifts and sleep disorders. In the petroleum industry, it is necessary to decrease the frequency of shifts to reduce the incidence of sleep disorders among shift workers.

Keywords:

• shift work
• sleep disorders
• cohort study

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the help from Kelamayi Centers for Disease Control of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region and Karamay Hospital’s occupational diseases department.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/10803548.2020.1826706 description of location.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [Grant number BK20171256]; Qinglan Project of Jiangsu Province of China.