Poor sleep reported by 90% of surveyed South Korean public safety personnel

Researchers surveyed 1,403 South Korean public safety personnel (781 military personnel, 406 police officers and 216 firefighters) using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). A group of 535 office workers was included for descriptive comparisons. The exploratory cross-sectional online survey compared PSQI scores across occupations and work schedules, and used adjusted regression to examine factors associated with poor sleep, defined as a PSQI score above 5.

Poor sleep quality was reported by 1,264 public safety personnel (90.1%) and 446 office workers (83.4%). Police officers had the highest mean PSQI score among the public safety groups, at 9.42. Shift workers had higher mean scores than non-shift workers (9.00 versus 8.20; p<0.001), but shift-work status was not associated with poor sleep in the adjusted analysis. Each additional monthly duty day was associated with higher odds of poor sleep (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01–1.28). Exercise frequency was also associated with poor sleep overall, though some category-specific estimates were imprecise.

The findings indicate a high reported burden of poor sleep in this surveyed workforce, but the cross-sectional design cannot establish causality. The authors note that more detailed data on schedule timing, workload, recovery opportunities and activity context are needed; the results do not establish that changing shift work or exercise patterns would improve sleep.