However, there is another category of overnight employment
that has not received as much scientific attention from a sleep
perspective. The aged care and disability support industries have a
substantial proportion of their workforce engaged in overnight
“sleepover” shifts. Typically, these occur in specially designed
group housing, with clients with varying clinical profiles, and
involve a residential support worker (RSW) who assists with late
afternoon/evening duties including dinner. Then, when clients are
asleep, workers are expected to sleep too, until their work resumes
for another 3e4 h in the morning. The amount of sleep workers
achieve under these conditions has not been systematically investigated.
This is important because there are many aspects of the role