title: Maintenance of Wakefulness and Occupational Injuries among Workers of an Italian Teaching Hospital.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To assess in a laboratory setting the ability to stay awake in a sample of workers of an Italian hospital and to investigate the association between that ability and the risk of occupational injury.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nine workers at the University Hospital of Udine who reported an occupational injury in the study period (cases), and seven noninjured workers (controls) underwent a polysomnography and four 40-minute maintenance of wakefulness tests (MWT). Differences in sleep characteristics and in wakefulness maintenance were assessed using Wilcoxon's rank sums tests and Fisher's exact tests.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Controls had greater sleep latency, lower total sleep time, fewer leg movements, and a higher percentage ratio of cycling alternating pattern, were more likely not to fall asleep during the MWT and were less likely to have two or more sleep onsets. Although not all the differences reached statistical significance, cases had lower sleep onset times in Trials 1-3.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In the literature, the evidence of an association between MWT results and real life risk of accidents is weak. Our results suggest a relationship between the MWT results and the risk of injury among hospital workers.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiologic Service, Regional Health Directorate, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Udine, Italy; Unit of Hygiene and Clinical Epidemiology, University Hospital of Udine, Udine, Italy; Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine, Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Valent
authors.affiliation: Neurology Clinic, University Hospital of Udine, Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sincig
authors.affiliation: Neurology Clinic, University Hospital of Udine, Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Gian Luigi
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Gigli
authors.affiliation: Neurology Clinic, University Hospital of Udine, Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Pierluigi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dolso
keywords: case–control study; maintenance of wakefulness test; occupational injury; teaching hospital