Dados do Trabalho

Título

Do airline pilots get enough sleep before night and early shifts?

Introdução

Most people would find a challenge working at night time. Workers are not suppose to sleep during the night working hours, but should be alert during the whole shift. Similarly, early morning shifts demand the workers to phase advance their bed and waking times in order to have adequate rest before starting work. Anticipating sleep time may be difficult due to biological and social reasons.

Objetivo

We evaluated the mean total sleep duration (MTSD) around the clock and particularly before night and early morning shifts among airline pilots operating domestic flights in Brazil.

Métodos

Study participants were 51 commercial pilots from Brazilian airlines (44 males, mean age 40 y). Their sleep and waking times were registered during 15 consecutive days. They wore actigraphs (Condor Instruments ActTrust 2) in the non-dominant wrist, and filled out sleep logs during the data collection (Dec 21 - May 22). Their work schedules followed irregular work patterns according to ANAC´s regulation. Night shifts were considered all flight duties starting from 00h00 to 06h00, and early-morning, 06h01 to 07h59. As further analysis was carried out, the night shift was divided into three categories of two hours each (00h00 to 02h00; 02h01 to 04h00; 04h01 to 06h00).

Resultados

493 flight duties were registered, among those 139 started during night and 72 during early-morning. MTSD before night and early-morning shifts was 389 min (sd 102), while MTSD before all other flight duties during daytime and evening hours was 463 min (sd 104). These MTSD are significantly different (p<0.001).
Comparing night to early morning, MTSD were 368 min (sd 100) before night shifts and 429 min (sd 94) before early-mornings (p< 0.001). Results also showed MTSD increased as the starting working times delayed during night and early morning: 298, 332, 386, 429 min, respectively. MTSD comparing 00h00 to 02h00 and 02h01 to 04:00 were not significantly different (p=0.44). Starting flights between 00h00 and 04h00 showed the lowest MTSD (319 min).

Conclusões

Starting work between 00h00 to 07h59 shortened MTSD approximately 75 minutes compared to joined day and evening hours.
Considering NSF recommendation of sleep duration for 26-64 y, airline pilots do to not get enough sleep before night and early flight duties. The reason is probably work schedule-related.

Palavras -chave

airline pilots, sleep duration, night shift, early shift.
Acknowledmgents: ANAC, FSP-USP and study participants.