Working “out-of-phase” with reference to chronotype compromises sleep quality in police officers

ABSTRACT

The aim of this work was to study the sleep characteristics, blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) of the police officers working during out-of-phase (OP) and in-phase (IP) duty schedules with respect to their chronotypes. Adult male and female police officers (n = 85) were asked to answer Hindi/English version of different questionnaires to assess their chronotype (morningness–eveningness questionnaire; MEQ), PSQI scores (Pittsburgh sleep quality index), daytime sleepiness (Epworth sleepiness scale, ESS) and fatigue levels (fatigue severity scale, FSS) and fill a sleep log. Based on their PSQI scores, the participating subjects (n = 85) were divided into two categories: good sleepers (58/85) and poor sleepers (27/85). Of these 85 subjects, 23 subjects (good sleepers n = 13; poor sleepers n = 10) volunteered for the next part of the study. At the beginning of the study, the existing duty schedule of these subjects was OP and lasted for 4 days (OP1). Thereafter, they were allotted their preferred (IP) duty schedule for 4 days, followed by OP2 for further 4 days. Over the 12-day period, subjects were monitored for their BP and sleep–wake cycle. Results showed that the poor sleepers improved their sleep quality and HR during IP duty schedule; however, good sleepers were not affected significantly.

KEYWORDS:

• Blood pressure
• chronotypes
• in-phase
• out-of-phase
• police officers
• shift work
• sleep characteristics

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the volunteers of the staff of Women Power Help Line who participated in the study. This work was authorized and could be completed under the guidance of DIG Range and IG of Women Cell Mr. Navneet Sikera.

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions in helping us to improve the quality of our manuscript.

Declaration of interest

This was not an industry subsidized study. The authors have indicated no financial conflicts of interest. No financial support from any funding agency was provided. However, the recording equipments (ABPM and Actiwatch) were provided by the laboratory of SR and SS.