Abstract
Excessive sleepiness (ES) is an increased tendency to initiate involuntary sleep for naps at inappropriate times.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to assess ES in air traffic controllers (ATCo).Methods45 flight protection professionals were evaluated, comprising 30 ATCo, subdivided into ATCo with ten or more years in the profession (ATCo≥10, n=15) and ATCo with less than ten years in the profession (ATCo<10, n=15) and 15 aeronautical information services operators (AIS), subdivided into AIS with ten years or more in the profession (AIS≥10, n=8) and AIS with less than ten years in the profession (AIS<10, n=7), who were included as the control group. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale and Maintenance of Wakefulness Test were used for evaluating subjective and objective excessive sleepiness. Kruskal-Wallis was used for ES and Mann-Whitney for sleep latency (SL), collection time in minutes (mins), and expressed as Median (Minimum-Maximum), p<0.05.ResultsATCo≥10 12 (6-14) mins and ATCo<10 10 (1-15) mins showed greater sleepiness compared to CONTROL1 7 (3-8) mins and CONTROL2 6 (4-6) mins, p=0.001*. A total of 77.27% of the ATCo and 16.67% of the AIS had an SL of less than 20 minutes. The ATCo presented an SL of 16.59 (3.25-40), lower than that of the AIS of 31.71 (10.63-40) mins, p<0.05*.ConclusionBrazilian air traffic controllers exhibit excessive sleepiness.
Highlights
Air traffic control is a profession that requires the constant action of its professionals due to the need to oversee all the flights on different schedules
Data analysis The results found were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis one way analysis of variance by ranks test, all pairwise multiple comparison procedures were performed by the Dunn’s method and data expressed in Median (Minimum and Maximum) for subjects’ data and by the Mann-Whitney test for objective data, with a significance level of p
It was observed that air traffic controllers had a subjective increase in sleepiness evidenced by the Epworth numerical scale of sleepiness (ESS) while objective evaluation using the maintenance wakefulness test showed a higher percentage of sleep latency of less than 20 minutes
Summary
Air traffic control is a profession that requires the constant action of its professionals due to the need to oversee all the flights on different schedules. Besides the problems caused by the shift inversion, air traffic controllers perform simultaneously in the course of Source: the author Their activities, complex and multiple tasks, such as controlling several aircraft at the same time, coordinating flights with adjacent organs and planning ahead, involving leveled aircraft separation and climbing or descending. There is a tendency for increased REM sleep proportions the night following deprivation, and an increase in NREM sleep on the second night, returning to the normal sleep architecture only on the third night.[11] In this context, individuals that work at night such as air traffic controllers, who often change shifts without a fixed rota, may show disturbed sleep architecture besides symptoms of tiredness, irritability, intellectual alterations and excessive daily sleepiness alternating with insomnia.[10] The hypothesis of this study was that air traffic controllers have excessive sleepiness. The objective of the study was to evaluate subjective and objective symptoms of excessive sleepiness in air traffic controllers from Recife area control center (ACC)
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