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Police Shift Work Essay

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Police Shift Work Essay
The work schedule of the police force inflicts a high level stressful condition that may impact upon their bodily, mental and mutual relationships. For a long span of time the police workers are coached in policing, but not about the issues relating to handling their mental and physical health. Most of the times they have to work for extended durations and irregular shift hours (Vila, 2006). A large body of work has shown that shift work of police is linked with increased spread of sleep disorders, malefic health outcomes and self reported slumberous driving (Vila and Samuels 2011).
Short and long duration of sleep have been found associated with increased levels of leptin and may have implications for conditions related to obesity (Charles
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An improved shift system will help in reduction of acquired sleep debts and also reduce disturbances of the circadian regulation (Knauth and Hornberger, 2003). Subsequently, there may be a reduction in occurrence of many diseases and also help in coping up with shift work.

Further, the shift workers should have a positive attitude towards the shift system. Previous studies have shown a relation between negative attitude to work hours and sleep-wake problems, failing health, stress and poor recovery (Axelsson et al., 2003, 2004; Kundi et al., 1981).

One study has observed that a satisfying schedule has a strong correlation with increased possibility of deciding own working hours (Eriksen and Kecklund, 2007). It has been suggested that if shift workers are involved in the planning of shift system, they will have a better attitude towards working hours alongwith improved control of work time and in this way decrease the impact of negative influence on various health functions. Recently, such a trend in involvement of workers in designing specific need based schedules has been observed (Harma,

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