Dados do Trabalho

Título

Sleep quality of nurses working shifts in a city in the Amazon region

Introdução

Around 16-30% of the work force in industrialized countries regularly engages in shift work, particularly for essential services such as nursing in hospitals. Shift work is associated with the development of sleep disorders and chronic non-communicable diseases

Objetivo

To investigate factors associated with sleep quality in nurses working shifts.

Métodos

A cross-sectional epidemiological quantitative study of 179 nurses from three hospitals of Rio Branco, Acre state, was conducted. Data were collected on sociodemographics, work-related aspects, life habits, health status, work-place stress (measured using Job Stress Scale) and social support (measured using MOS Social Support Survey). Sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) scale. All data were analysed using descriptive statistics and associations between variables were tested using Pearson´s chi-square test and Fisher´s Exact test.

Resultados

Of the 179 participants, 60.39% had poor sleep quality, where this was found to be associated with the variables low social support, monotonous repetitive work, communication difficulties with superiors/bosses, and use of sleep medications in the past 7 days. No significant association of shift work with poor sleep quality was found. Regarding subjective sleep quality, 46.96% of participants rated their sleep quality as good and 36.46% as poor/very poor. Overall, 30.56% of participants reported sleep latency of 16-30 minutes after going to bed. Mean sleep duration was 6.48 hours (SD ±1.54 hours). Habitual sleep efficiency exceeded 85% for 68.89% of participants. A total of 18.34% of respondents reported using sleep medications at least once a week in the past month.

Conclusões

The results showed that most nurses surveyed had poor sleep quality. Besides negatively affecting health and quality of life, poor sleep quality can lead to reduced levels of alertness and performance on the job, potentially jeopardizing patient safety.

Palavras-chave

Sleep. Nursing. Shift work