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Shift Work Disorder In Teens

Written by: Mary Gibbons on September 14th, 2009

Shift Work Disorder In Teens | read this item

Shift Work Disorder, a medical condition caused when an individual’s internal clock is out of sync with their work schedule is being seen in the teen population with most being, ‘chronically sleep-deprived’ according to a report on Today.

The condition is most often seen in people who work outside the standard framework of a 9 to 5 schedule or who change their work or sleep schedules frequently or work longterm on other than the day shift.

The most disastrous side effect is the sleepy or ‘drowsy driver’.

Two of the scariest data points come from U Penn and Liberty Mutual:
- 36% of teens admit to driving drowsy on a regular basis
- 55% of fatigue-related crashes involve drivers under 25

As a result of years of education, teenage drivers are aware of the risks of alcohol-impaired driving and are much less likely to drive under the influence of alcohol than are non-teen adults. Unfortunately, teens don’t recognize the dangers of drowsy driving.

Another study done by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Company (Driving: Through the Eyes of Teens) found that three-fourths of teens reported seeing their peers driving while fatigued. The research surveyed 5,665 ninth, tenth and eleventh grade students representative of all 10.6 million public school students in grades nine through eleven.

According to The National Sleep Foundation, teenagers are going thru so many chemical changes in their bodies, plus after-school jobs and online socializing makes it impossible for them to get to sleep before 11 PM and have the required amount of sleep necessary to properly function.

We highly recommend you watch the story on Today below:

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