Subjective sleep characteristics of night shift workers

Abstract

A descriptive design was used to study the subjective sleep characteristics of permanent night shift workers, examine the validity and reliability of the Visual Analog Sleep (VAS) Scales, and to compare the scores to a previously tested non night shift working sample. The VAS Scales, which employ a visual analog format to measure subjective perceptions of sleeps were reworded slightly to apply to this population, giving rise to the VAS/NS (Night Shift) Scales. A sample of 40 night shift workers completed the VAS/NS Scales on two separate days. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to evaluate this data. The VAS/NS Scales evidence good internal reliability. The factors remained essentially the same with some changes for this sample. The subjective experience of sleep was significantly different from the non night shift working sample for five of the 13 characteristics tested.