Tengsl milli hreyfingar, svefns og syfju hjá atvinnuflugmönnum

Introduction. Airline pilots work irregular shifts but need to maintain good performance. Irregular shift work can disrupt circadian rhythms and impair sleep regulation and timing. Insufficient or poor-quality sleep may lead to excessive sleepiness or fatigue, adversely affecting pilots health, performance and ultimately aviation safety. Objective. The aim of this study was to evaluate objective sleep parameters, including total sleep time (TST), sleep efficiency (SE), wake after sleep onset (WASO) and number of awakenings (NWAK) and sleep onset (SOL), b) Sleepiness across four flight types and three flight stages, c) associations between sleep parameters and physical activity. Materials and method. Fifty-three airline pilots participated in the study (age 41.0 ± 8.1 years). Objective data on sleep and activity was collected for two weeks via wrist-worn actigraphy. A two-way ANCOVA was conducted to examine differences in sleep parameters. A two-way within-subjects ANOVA to assess sleepiness across flight types and stages. Associations were examined using correlation and regression analyses. Results Duty type affected all sleep parameters (p< .001). Physical activity had a covariate effect on TST (p=.022). Sleep before early-morning flights was associated with the shortest sleep duration.Layover sleep was characterized by lower SE and greater WASO compared to most other duty-types. Sleepiness differed across all flight types and stages (p< .001), with night-flights showing the steepest rise and the highest level of sleepiness. Correlation was between physical activity and TST (r= -0,51, p< .001), WASO (r= -0,32, p = .023) and SOL (r= 0,35, p = .012). Conclusion. Sleep duration, sleep quality, and subjective sleepiness among pilots are strongly influenced by duty timing and flight characteristics. Physical activity was associated with shorter sleep duration, longer sleep onset latency and shorter wake after sleep onset. These findings highlight the importance of well designed duty schedules, as a fundamental component of sleep and sleepiness of pilots and consequently on aviation safety.