Sleep habits, daytime sleepiness and working conditions in short-distance bus drivers

Working conditions of commercial drivers: a scoping review of psychosocial work factors, health outcomes, and interventions

BACKGROUND

Psychosocial work factors significantly influence both organisational and worker health. Poor management of these factors can create precarious working conditions, risking drivers' health. This review maps evidence on the health impact of these factors and health interventions targeting the working conditions and unhealthy habits of commercial drivers.

METHOD

The search was conducted in four main databases (PubMed, Central, JSTOR and Dimensions Ai) and other sources like Google Scholar. In All, 28,039 articles were retrieved and through a rigorous screening process, 68 records were included in this scoping review.

RESULTS

This review found that drivers work in precarious conditions like long driving hours, low job resources and social support, low job control, poor remuneration, workplace abuse and sexual harassment, work-family conflict, lone driving hour, irregular shift work, lack or insufficient breaks during work hours and difficult access to social protection and sanitation facilities. These precarious working conditions may expose drivers to mental health issues, cardiovascular diseases, HIV/AIDs, stroke, chronic fatigue, kidney and bladder issues and musculoskeletal pains. Most health promotion interventions target behaviour at the individual level, such as the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise, with little effort to improving working conditions.

CONCLUSION

Employers in the road transport sector need to implement health promotion interventions that focus on drivers' well-being. Additionally, improving working conditions and enforcing occupational health and safety standards in the road transport sector are essential for creating a safe and healthy workplace for all commercial drivers.

Threats and violence towards urban bus drivers in Sweden’: Drivers experiences and general recommendations to prevent violence and threats

BACKGROUND: Approximately 30% of Swedish urban bus drivers report having been exposed to threats or violence. As 50% of drivers have voiced concerns about the occurrences, threats and violence also represent contributing factors to driver stress and fatigue. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore bus drivers’ experience of threats and violence; how threats and violence manifests and how the problem is handled by drivers. Gaining understanding of the circumstances is important to reduce the number of threats and violent incidents to provide healthy and attractive working conditions for drivers. METHODS: This study is based on in-depth interviews with 12 urban bus drivers in the City of Malmö in Sweden. RESULTS: Urban bus drivers experience threats daily from passengers, although physical violence occurs less often. The most common situations resulting in threats involve asking passengers to show valid tickets, denying child carriages onboard and running late to a bus stop. The drivers have not received clear guidelines as to strategic handling of the invalid ticket situation. CONCLUSIONS: Recommendations include a clear policy and consensus with regard to handling invalid tickets, providing drivers with guidelines for appropriate procedures for passengers refusing to pay, improving reporting routines and establishing a strategy for the Public Transportation provider and operator to follow with regard to reports, in-vehicle surveillance cameras including informing passengers that they are being video recorded as well as harmonizing the location of alarm buttons on buses.

Qualidade do Sono, Estresse e Qualidade de Vida em Motoristas Profissionais

Resumo O sono e o estresse podem influenciar a qualidade de vida de profissionais que atuam em contextos laborais, que oferecem riscos de violências, tais como o trânsito. Este estudo objetivou avaliar a qualidade do sono, o estresse e a qualidade de vida de motoristas profissionais das cidades brasileiras de Petrolina (PE) e Juazeiro (BA). Os participantes (317, 99,1% do sexo masculino), cuja idade variou entre 21 e 65 anos, responderam a Escala de Sonolência Epworth, o Índice de Pittsburgh, o Inventário de Sintomas de Stress para Adultos, o WHOQOL-BREF e um questionário estruturado. Os resultados indicaram que a maioria dos motoristas tem boa qualidade de vida e que a sonolência diurna excessiva e a qualidade ruim de sono ocorreram em taxas menores que aquelas observadas em estudos internacionais. Já o estresse apresentou prevalência similar à de outros estudos na área. Ademais, melhor qualidade de vida e boa qualidade do sono se associaram, enquanto o sono ruim se associou à presença de estresse na fase de resistência. Os resultados apontam, ainda, para o impacto que as variáveis aqui investigadas têm sobre a atividade laboral desses motoristas e para a necessidade de ações de intervenção em seu contexto de trabalho, tendo em vista que esses profissionais lidam cotidianamente com o transporte de pessoas, em meio à realidade tão violenta do trânsito brasileiro.

Sleep, napping and alertness during an overwintering mission at Belgrano II Argentine Antarctic station

During Antarctic isolation personnel are exposed to extreme photoperiods. A frequent observation is a sleep onset phase delay during winter. It is not known if, as a result, daytime sleeping in the form of naps increases. We sought to assess sleep patterns - with focus on daytime sleeping - and alertness in a Latin American crew overwintering in Argentine Antarctic station Belgrano II. Measurements were collected in 13 males during March, May, July, September and November, and included actigraphy and psychomotor vigilance tasks. Sleep duration significantly decreased during winter. A total of eight participants took at least one weekly nap across all measurement points. During winter, the nap onset was delayed, its duration increased and its efficiency improved. We observed a significant effect of seasonality in the association of evening alertness with sleep onset. Our results replicate previous findings regarding sleep during overwintering in Antarctica, adding the description of the role of napping and the report of a possible modulatory effect of seasonality in the relation between sleep and alertness. Napping should be considered as an important factor in the scheduling of activities of multicultural crews that participate in Antarctica.

Factors associated with obesity in urban collective transportation workers of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the demographic, behavioral and occupational factors associated with obesity among urban collective transportation workers of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil.

METHOD

This is a cross-sectional study conducted with 1,448 drivers and collectors in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte. Anthropometric, demographic, behavioral data, as well as participants' link to the company and bus conditions were gathered in 2012 through a questionnaire applied by an interviewer. To calculate obesity, the body mass index cut off point was ≥ 30 kg/m2. Prevalence ratios (PR) and respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were adjusted by Poisson's multivariate regression.

RESULTS

The prevalence of obesity among urban collective transportation workers was 16.1%. Female sex (PR = 1.84; 95%CI 1.37 - 2.49), aging 30 to 39 years old (PR = 1.66; 95%CI 1.17 - 2.37) and 40 to 49 years old (PR = 1.59; 95%CI 1.04 - 2.42), being in the same job role from 5.01 to 10 years (PR = 1.52; 95%CI 1.04 - 2,42) and from 20.01 to 47 years (PR = 1.90; 95%CI 1.21 - 3.00), and physical inactivity (PR = 1.32; 95%CI 1.01 - 1.73) remained independently associated with obesity after multivariate adjustment data.

CONCLUSION

These findings highlight the need to consider actions that encourage employees to participate in healthy activities when discussing health promotion for public transport workers, as well as actions to improve the organization and management of work, so it becomes a health and well-being feature for this population.

An on-road study of sleepiness in split shifts among city bus drivers

Bus drivers often work irregular hours or split shifts and their work involves high levels of stress. These factors can lead to severe sleepiness and dangerous driving. This study examined how split shift working affects sleepiness and performance during afternoon driving. An experiment was conducted on a real road with a specially equipped regular bus driven by professional bus drivers. The study had a within-subject design and involved 18 professional bus drivers (9 males and 9 females) who drove on two afternoons; one on a day in which they had driven early in the morning (split shift situation) and one on a day when they had been off duty until the test (afternoon shift situation). The hypothesis tested was that split shifts contribute to sleepiness during afternoon, which can increase the safety risks. The overall results supported this hypothesis. In total, five of the 18 drivers reached levels of severe sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale ≥8) with an average increase in KSS of 1.94 when driving in the afternoon after working a morning shift compared with being off duty in the morning. This increase corresponded to differences observed between shift workers starting and ending a night shift. The Psychomotor Vigilance Task showed significantly increased response time with split shift working (afternoon: 0.337s; split shift 0.347s), as did the EEG-based Karolinska Drowsiness Score mean/max. Blink duration also increased, although the difference was not significant. One driver fell asleep during the drive. In addition, 12 of the 18 bus drivers reported that in their daily work they have to fight to stay awake while driving at least 2-4 times per month. While there were strong individual differences, the study clearly showed that shift-working bus drivers struggle to stay awake and thus countermeasures are needed in order to guarantee safe driving with split shift schedules.

Factors associated with self-reported driver sleepiness and incidents in city bus drivers

Driver fatigue has received increased attention during recent years and is now considered to be a major contributor to approximately 15-30% of all crashes. However, little is known about fatigue in city bus drivers. It is hypothesized that city bus drivers suffer from sleepiness, which is due to a combination of working conditions, lack of health and reduced sleep quantity and quality. The overall aim with the current study is to investigate if severe driver sleepiness, as indicated by subjective reports of having to fight sleep while driving, is a problem for city based bus drivers in Sweden and if so, to identify the determinants related to working conditions, health and sleep which contribute towards this. The results indicate that driver sleepiness is a problem for city bus drivers, with 19% having to fight to stay awake while driving the bus 2-3 times each week or more and nearly half experiencing this at least 2-4 times per month. In conclusion, severe sleepiness, as indicated by having to fight sleep during driving, was common among the city bus drivers. Severe sleepiness correlated with fatigue related safety risks, such as near crashes.