Evaluation of the change in the level of daytime sleepiness after participation in a pedometer-based workplace health program — ASN Events
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Evaluation of the change in the level of daytime sleepiness after participation in a pedometer-based workplace health program (#188)

Winda Ng 1 2 3 , Anna Peeters 1 2 , Rosanne Freak-Poli 1 2
  1. Obesity and Population Health Unit, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, melbourne, VIC, Australia
  2. Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, melbourne, VIC, Australia
  3. University of Indonesia, Jakarta Barat, DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

Introduction

Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) is associated with reduced work performance and increased rate of morbidity and mortality.1,2,3,4   Our study analysed whether an improvement in EDS was an unforseen positive outcome from a workplace pedometer program.

Methods

762 eligible participants of the Global Corporate Challenge® (GCC®) program; an annual, global, 10,000-steps, workplace, pedometer program; were recruited for the GCC® Evaluation study in Melbourne, 2008. Daytime sleepiness was assessed at the start (baseline) and end (four-months) of the program using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS).5  EDS is defined as ESS>10.6  Change in ESS and EDS were assessed using regression adjusted for workplace clustering effects. The final sample size for the primary analysis of this study was 475.

Results

At baseline, mean ESS was 6.6±4.1, with 16% prevalence of EDS. At baseline, EDS was associated with female gender (p<0.001), diabetes status (p=0.02), lower score of well-being (p<0.001) and lower level of triglycerides (p=0.04). At four-months, the overall mean ESS scores did not show significant change, -0.2 units (-0.4 to 0.0). However, after stratification according to the status of EDS at baseline, a significant improvement of -2.1 units (-3.1 to -1.1) in ESS scores was detected in the EDS group. This magnitude of change was found to be greater than that estimated by a regression to the mean model.  This suggests association between participation in the GCC® program and improvement in ESS for employees with baseline EDS.

Conclusion

This is the first study to assess the effect of a pedometer-based workplace health program on daytime sleepiness. The result suggests that study participants with baseline EDS may experience improvement in daytime sleepiness after participation in such a program. However, a controlled study is needed to confirm this finding and assess the potential long-term effect of similar programs on daytime sleepiness. 

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