Sleep disorders are common among police officers, and are associated with job-performance, health and safety problems. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association covering 4,957 police officers in the U.S. and Canada found that 40.4% screened positive for some kind of sleep disorder, most commonly obstructive sleep apnea. A smaller percentage of officers screened positive for insomnia and shift work sleep disorder. ( We’ve written before about the hazards of shift work.) The study found that those officers who reported symptoms of a sleep disorder were more likely than those who didn’t to experience a litany of problems: physical and mental illnesses such as diabetes and depression, experiencing “uncontrolled anger” toward suspects, falling asleep while driving and absenteeism. (The study can’t determine whether the sleep disorders caused those problems or whether some other underlying cause was driving the sleep and other difficulties.) Charles Czeisler , chief of the division of sleep medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an author of the study,

says he and his colleagues were surprised at how high the rate of sleep disorders was among the police officers surveyed. Overweight and obesity are risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea, and more than 79% of the officers had body mass indexes that would put them in those categories, the study found. That’s a higher percentage than is seen in the general population, says Czeisler. Most of the responses came from online surveys, but the researchers conducted part of the study on-site, with a municipal police department and state police department. Czeisler says the state police officers studied had “a strikingly lower rate” of obstructive sleep apnea, perhaps because the law requires them to regularly pass an occupational fitness exam. Those officers were also given one hour of paid time per shift to work on their fitness, he says. Bonus: What’s the Best Way to Deal With Sleep-Deprived Surgeons? Image: iStockphoto

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Sleep Disorders Tied to Health, Safety Problems in Police Officers