Clinical trial NCT00246051: Comprehensive Police Fatigue Management Program
Official title: Testing the Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Fatigue Management for the Police
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Sleep Disorders
Sleep Apnea, Obstructive
Restless Legs Syndrome
Sleep Disorders, Circadian Rhythm
Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders
Keywords: Police
Sleep
Fatigue
Work Hours
Sleep disorder
Performance
Lead sponsor: Brigham and Women's Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2005-10-30
Enrollment: 683
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Primary purpose: DIAGNOSTIC

Brief summary: Police officers work some of the most demanding schedules known, which increases their risk of sleep deprivation and sleep disorders. The need to work frequent overnight shifts and long work weeks leads to acute and chronic partial sleep deprivation as well as misalignment of circadian phase. The public expects officers to perform flawlessly, but sleep deprivation and unrecognized sleep disorders significantly degrade cognition, alertness, reaction time and performance. In addition, both acute and chronic sleep deprivation adversely affect personal health, increasing the risk of gastrointestinal and heart disease, impairing glucose metabolism, and substantially increasing the risk of injury due to motor vehicle crashes.

We propose to conduct a randomized, prospective study of the effect on the safety, health, and performance of a police department of a Comprehensive Police Fatigue Management Program (CPFMP) consisting of the following interventions:

1. identification and treatment of police with sleep disorders;
2. caffeine re-education; and
3. initiation of a sleep, health and safety educational program.

These interventions were chosen because we believe them most likely to lead to measurable improvements on work hours, health, safety, and job performance, and because they are cost effective. The success of the CPFMP will be assessed through an experimental comparison with a standard treatment group that will receive sleep education in the absence of any accompanying interventions. The overall goal of our team will be sleep health detection and treatment program that can be disseminated to practitioners, policymakers and researchers nationwide to reduce police officer fatigue and stress; enhance the ability of officers to cope with shift schedules; improve the health, safety and performance of law enforcement officers; and thereby improve public safety.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Active Sworn Police Officers

Exclusion Criteria:

* None

Primary outcomes:
measure: Motor vehicle accidents as a function of miles traveled
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Number of on-the-job injuries
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Number of citations issued
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Number of arrests made
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Number of warnings issued
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Number of officer-initiated vehicle assists
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Number of sick leave days
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Sleep duration
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Sleep quality
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Alertness
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Performance
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Job satisfaction
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Burnout
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
measure: Works hours
timeFrame: 05/2005 - 07/2009
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: Brigham and Women's Hospital
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
affiliation: Brigham and Women's Hospital
name: Charles A. Czeisler, Ph.D., M.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: