Sleep quality and its related factors in intercity bus drivers

Aims: Sleeping is one of the basic physiological needs of human beings and has an important effect on people's everyday activities. One of the prevalent disorders in humans is sleeping disorder. This disorder can have serious effects on humans such as increasing human errors during work, especially during driving. This study was designed to evaluate the quality of sleep and its related factors in Kerman inter-city bus drivers. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done in 2011. One hundred inter-city bus drivers were chosen by simple random sampling. Sleep quality was evaluated by the standard Petersburg Questionnaire and data were analyzed by independent T-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation and Chi-square test using SPSS 15 software. Results: The mean driving hours of each driver was 7.71±0.81 hours a day and the mean score of sleep quality in the drivers was 6.98±0.34 from 21 scores, and 61% of them had poor sleep quality. There was a significant relationship between the quality of sleep and age (p=0.01) and job satisfaction (p=0.001). The drivers that had had an accident in the last 5 years were more likely to have poor sleep quality (p=0.013). Conclusion: The sleep quality is not satisfactory among the majority of Kerman inter-city bus drivers. Certain initiatives should be implemented for improving drivers' sleep quality and timely and adequate rest and restricting their work hours in order to prevent accidents and save passengers from harm.