The role of occupational stressors in sleepiness: a quantitative review

Abstract

Krauss, Chen, DeArmond and Moorcroft (2003) called attention to the lack of research on workplace sleepiness. These authors also proposed a number of antecedents of workplace sleepiness, which included occupational stressors. The current study investigated the relationship between seven occupational stressors and workplace sleepiness/sleepiness surrogates via a meta-analytic approach. The results of the analyses showed that six of the occupational stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict, workload, interpersonal conflict, situational constraints, perceived control) had small to moderate relationships with workplace sleepiness/sleepiness surrogates (the relationship between traumatic/acute stressors and workplace sleepiness/sleepiness surrogates was not analyzed due to an insufficient number of relevant data points). Although moderators were suggested for the relationships between role ambiguity, workload, perceived control, and workplace sleepiness/sleepiness surrogates, only one potential moderator (type of workplace sleepiness/sleepiness surrogate scale) was investigated for the relationship between workload and workplace sleepiness/sleepiness surrogate because of practical constraints. The type of workplace sleepiness scale was not found to moderate the relationship. The meta-analyses suggest that this is an important area for future research.