title: Sleep in a Gymnasium: A Study to Examine the Psychophysiological and Environmental Conditions in Shelter-Analogue Settings.
abstract: We aimed to examine sleep in shelter-analogue settings to determine the sleep and environmental conditions in evacuation shelters. A summer social/educational event was conducted in an elementary school, wherein children and their parents (n= 109) spent one night in the school gymnasium; a total of 15 children and 7 adults completed the study. Data were recording using wrist actigraphy and questionnaires, from two days before the event to two days after the event. During the night in the gymnasium, sleep initiation in the children was found to be significantly delayed, whereas adults did not show any significant change in actigraphic sleep parameters. Although 57% of adults complained of stiffness of the floor, only 7% of children had the same complaint. The nocturnal noise recorded at four locations in the gymnasium showed that the percentage of 1-min data epochs with a noise level >40 dB ranged from 53% to 74% during lights-out. The number of subjects that woke up during the night showed a similar pattern with the changes in the noise level. The changes in sleep might represent event-specific responses, such as to a noisy environment, and the different complaints between adults and children could be useful in shelter management.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai 981-8522, Japan. mizuno-k@tfu-mail.tfu.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Koh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mizuno
authors.affiliation: Kansei Fukushi Research Center, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai 989-3201, Japan. kazue@tfu-mail.tfu.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Kazue
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Okamoto-Mizuno
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai 989-3201, Japan. m-tanabe@tfu-mail.tfu.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Motoko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanabe
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai 981-8522, Japan. niwano@tfu-mail.tfu.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Katsuko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Niwano
mesh_terms: D056044:Actigraphy; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D060447:Emergency Shelter; D004780:Environment, Controlled; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise; D010290:Parents; D012890:Sleep; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014953:Wrist
keywords: children; gymnasium; shelter; sleep