Sleep disturbance during military deployment

This preliminary investigation evaluated symptoms of sleep disturbance and insomnia in a group of 156 deployed military personnel. A 21-item Military Deployment Survey of Sleep was administered to provide self-reported estimates of a variety of sleep parameters. The results indicated that 74% of participants rated their quality of sleep as significantly worse in the deployed environment, 40% had a sleep efficiency of <85%, and 42% had a sleep onset latency of >30 minutes. Night-shift workers had significantly worse sleep efficiency and more problems getting to sleep and staying asleep as compared to day-shift workers. The results of the study indicate the need for programs to help deployed military members get more and better sleep.