IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v21y2024i9p1155-d1467927.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sleep Differences in Firefighters: Barracks vs. Home

Author

Listed:
  • Lainey E. Hunnicutt

    (Department of Public Health and Exercise Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA)

  • Makenzie Corgan

    (Department of Public Health and Exercise Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA)

  • Sarah R. Brown

    (Department of Public Health and Exercise Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA)

  • Alyssa Nygaard

    (Department of Public Health and Exercise Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA)

  • George Lesley Meares

    (Department of Public Health and Exercise Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA)

  • Scott R. Collier

    (Department of Public Health and Exercise Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA)

Abstract

It has been shown that the firefighter occupation leads to poor sleep quality and sleep architecture. Disturbed sleep in these occupations can lead to deleterious outcomes including a series of chronic diseases and illnesses such as CVD. Purpose: The aims were (1) to quantify firefighters’ sleep via polysomnography, (2) to identify differences between sleeping in the barracks versus sleeping at home, and (3) to compare firefighter data to age-matched normative data. We expected significant differences between both the home and the barrack conditions as well as significant differences when both conditions were compared to normative data. Methods: 10 male firefighters completed 3 nights of polysomnography recordings (SleepProfiler TM (Advanced Brain Monitoring, Carlsbad, CA, USA)) counterbalanced in both their own beds or barracks. A one-way rmANOVA statistical analysis was used to determine differences in sleep values with a Bonferroni correction if a significant difference was found with significance set at p < 0.05. Results: Three important variables, cortical arousals ( p < 0.05), autonomic activations ( p < 0.01), and spindle duration ( p < 0.01), had differences that were statistically significant between sleep at home or in the barracks, with sleep in the barracks being more disturbed. Clinical differences were also observed between the home and barrack conditions and all sleep results were more deleterious when compared to normative data. Conclusions: The data demonstrates that firefighters show poor sleep quality and heavily impacted sleep architecture. This may be due to the effects of rotating shifts and occupational stress on the sleep–wake cycle. These results, when compared to age-matched normative data, show clinical manifestations of disturbed sleep in the firefighter population.

Suggested Citation

  • Lainey E. Hunnicutt & Makenzie Corgan & Sarah R. Brown & Alyssa Nygaard & George Lesley Meares & Scott R. Collier, 2024. "Sleep Differences in Firefighters: Barracks vs. Home," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(9), pages 1-8, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:21:y:2024:i:9:p:1155-:d:1467927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/9/1155/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/9/1155/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin D Yetton & Elizabeth A McDevitt & Nicola Cellini & Christian Shelton & Sara C Mednick, 2018. "Quantifying sleep architecture dynamics and individual differences using big data and Bayesian networks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-27, April.
    2. S. M. Purcell & D. S. Manoach & C. Demanuele & B. E. Cade & S. Mariani & R. Cox & G. Panagiotaropoulou & R. Saxena & J. Q. Pan & J. W. Smoller & S. Redline & R. Stickgold, 2017. "Characterizing sleep spindles in 11,630 individuals from the National Sleep Research Resource," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-16, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xunda Wang & Alex T. L. Leong & Shawn Z. K. Tan & Eddie C. Wong & Yilong Liu & Lee-Wei Lim & Ed X. Wu, 2023. "Functional MRI reveals brain-wide actions of thalamically-initiated oscillatory activities on associative memory consolidation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21, December.
    2. Nicola Luigi Bragazzi & Ottavia Guglielmi & Sergio Garbarino, 2019. "SleepOMICS: How Big Data Can Revolutionize Sleep Science," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-13, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:21:y:2024:i:9:p:1155-:d:1467927. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.