Sleep quality among a sample of Egyptian truck drivers

Abstract

Abstract Background “Road traffic accidents” is a major health problem and it is significantly related to the mean daily sleep hours and sleep quality. This study aims to explore the sleep quality among a group of Egyptian truck drivers. Methodology A convenience sample of 117 male truck drivers working on Cairo – Suez highway was selected. Socio-demographic and occupational history were collected using an interview questionnaire and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) was calculated. Results The mean age of the studied drivers was 38.7 ± 9.7 y, 82.1% were married and 79.5% were current smokers. The mean driving hours per day was 15.35 ± 4.77, the mean sleeping hours per day was 5.8 ± 2.3 and 48 drivers (41%) had poor sleep quality according to the cutoff 5 for PSQI questionnaire. There was a significant difference between drivers with good vs poor sleep quality regarding number of cigarettes smoked per day, hours of work per day and mean distance travelled per day. Multivariate logistic regression showed that hours of work per day was the only significant predictor with poor sleep quality. Among drivers with poor sleep quality 16.3% reported having accidents in the past year which was significantly higher (p = 0.016) than those who had good sleep quality (2.9%), Odds Ratio: 6.4, 95% CI; 1.3-31.8. Conclusion Poor sleep quality is associate with increased risk of road traffic accidents among the studied truck drivers and the main factor that affect sleep quality is the number of working hours per day.