BMC Public Health · Nov 3, 2026
Sleep quality and shift work among South Korean public safety personnel: a cross-sectional study
By Sung JY, Lee H, Jeong D et al.
Background: To examine sleep quality across public safety occupations and work-schedule groups and determine whether shift work and exercise patterns were associated with poor sleep quality among South Korean public safety personnel (PSP). Methods: This exploratory cross-sectional online survey included 1,403 PSP (781 military personnel, 406 police officers, and 216 firefighters); 535 office workers were included as a descriptive comparison group in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) analyses. Global and component PSQI scores were compared using conventional or Welch one-way analysis of variance with post hoc tests. Firth penalized logistic regression examined associations with poor sleep quality (PSQI > 5) among PSP, with ordinal predictors modeled categorically and monthly duty days modeled continuously. Results: Poor sleep quality was identified in 1,264 PSP (90.1%) and 446 office workers (83.4%). Police officers had the highest mean global PSQI score among PSP occupations (9.42). Shift-working PSP had higher global scores than non-shift PSP (9.00 vs. 8.20; p < 0.001), but shift-work status was not associated with poor sleep quality after adjustment. In the fully adjusted model, weekly exercise frequency was associated with poor sleep quality (overall p < 0.001), although some category-specific confidence intervals were wide. Each additional monthly duty day was associated with higher odds of poor sleep quality (odds ratio [OR], 1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–1.28; p = 0.038). Female sex (OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.44–0.96) and nap durations of > 30 to < 60 min (OR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.23–0.72) or ≥ 60 min (OR, 0.28; 95% CI, 0.15–0.51), compared with ≤ 30 min, were associated with lower odds of poor sleep quality. Conclusions: Poor sleep quality was common among PSP. More detailed measures of schedule timing, workload, recovery opportunity, and activity context are needed to characterize occupational sleep burden.