Background Occupational stress is an important health risk factor in occupational population, and is linked to poor sleep quality. Sleep disorder is associated with increased risks of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and so on. Having long shift work, permanent way system employees are prone to have sleep quality problems.
Objective This study aims to assess the effect of occupational stress and shift work on sleep quality of permanent way system workers, and provide a scientific basis for protecting and promoting their physical and mental health.
Methods From December 2018 to April 2019, a stratified cluster sampling method was adopted to select 642 permanent way system employees of Fuzhou Railway Administration who met the inclusion criteria. The occupational stress and sleep quality of the participants were evaluated by the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scale respectively. The JCQ contained job demand, job control, and social support; the score ratio of job demand to job control (D/C) > 1 indicated occupational stress. The PSQI scale contained seven components, providing an overall score of 21; higher scores was associated with worse sleep quality, and score > 7 indicated sleep quality problem. Logistic regression was used to analyze the influencing factors of sleep quality, and the effect of the interaction of occupational stress and shift work on sleep quality was also analyzed after adjusting for relevant confounding factors.
Results A total of 627 valid questionnaires were returned, and the valid return rate was 97.7%. There were 592 male workers (94.42%), 263 workers with occupational stress (41.95%), and 229 night shift workers (36.52%). The PSQI scores differed among the subjects of different age, education, smoking, and exercise groups (P < 0.05). The score of sleep quality was higher in the occupational stress group than in the non-occupational stress group (t=-2.433, P < 0.05), and higher in the night shift workers than in the day shift workers (t=-7.921, P < 0.05). The logistic regression analysis results found that night shift was a risk factor affecting the sleep quality of permanent way system workers (OR=3.878, 95% CI:2.394-6.282). The interaction analysis results showed that compared with the workers without occupational stress and with day shift, the workers with occupational stress and with night shift had a higher risk of having sleep quality problems (OR=4.883, 95% CI:2.305-10.341).
Conclusion Night shift is a risk factor affecting the sleep quality of workers of railway public works system, and the co-exposure to night shift and occupational stress is more harmful.
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