Sleep Quality And Quality Of Life Among Brazilian Civil Police Officers

Abstract

Policing is an intense and stressful profession since police officers (PO) deal with different types of crimes and job-related situations that often are life-threatening. Studies have shown that policing routine may negatively impact the PO's sleep and quality of life, making those two aspects important indicators to be better understood among PO. PURPOSE: To investigate sleep quality (SQ) and quality of life (QoL) among Brazilian Civil Police Officers, and its associations. METHODS: We evaluated 55 PO (50.9% men) with a mean age of 28.1 ± 5.7 yrs, BMI of 25.8 ± 3.8 kg/m2, VO2max of 34.1 ± 7.3 ml•(kg•min)-1. We assessed SQ and QoL by validated self-report questionnaires. Participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) questionnaires. SQ was categorized as poor (PSQI score ≥ 5) or good (PSQI score < 5). The 26-item WHOQOL questionnaire assesses QoL in four domains: physical, psychological, social, and environmental. We compared QoL between poor and good sleepers using the Mann-Whitney test (p ≤ 0.05). Data are presented as median and extremes (min-max). RESULTS: 16 (29,1%) PO were classified as good sleepers. The QoL was 71.4 (25.0-96.4) in the physical domain, 70.8 (29.2-100.0) in the psychological, 75.0 (41.7-100.0) in the social and 65.6 (15.6-93.8) in the environmental one. Those with good SQ showed higher physical domain of QoL [76.8 (64.3-96.4)] as compared to the poor sleepers [67.9 (25.0-96.4)] (p = 0.001 - Figure 1). CONCLUSION: This sample of civil PO showed a high proportion of poor sleepers and median QoL that could be considered relatively impaired (≤75% of the maximum). Also, better scores of SQ were associated with higher scores in the QoL physical domain. Our findings highlight the importance to assess and promote SQ and QoL among those public safety professionals.