Diurnal Urinary 6‐Sulfatoxymelatonin Levels among Healthy Danish Nurses during Work and Leisure Time

Dec 28, 2006Chronobiology international

Daily urine melatonin levels in healthy Danish nurses during work and free time

AI simplified

Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

Night shift work is associated with lower urinary excretion of 6-sulphatoxymelatonin compared to day shift work in nurses.

Shift work may influence melatonin levels in nurses, particularly reducing levels during night shifts.
No significant differences in melatonin levels were found between workdays and days off for day and evening shifts.
All nurses experienced reduced sleep length on workdays, averaging 6.1-6.8 hours compared to 7.8-8.7 hours on days off.
Data were collected from 170 nurses across various shift schedules, including fixed and rotating shifts.

AI simplified

The present study aims to examine the influence of evening and night shift work, compared to day shift work, on melatonin secretion in nurses in a field setting. Effects were examined during a workday and during a day off. Both fixed schedules and mixed or rotating schedules were studied. In total, 170 nurses were studied: 89 nurses worked fixed schedules, 27 nurses worked the day shift, 12 nurses worked the evening shift, 50 nurses worked the night shift, and 82 nurses worked mixed schedules, with data collected during a day (n = 17), evening (n = 14), or night shift (n = 50). All spot urine samples were collected during 24 h from the participants on a work day and on a day off and were analyzed for 6-sulphatoxymelatonin. On the day of urine sampling, participants filled in the Karolinska Sleep Diary. Additional information was collected through a telephone interview. Data were analyzed using a mixed procedure with autoregressive covariance structure. The present study showed that shift work affected the concentrations of 6-sulphatoxymelatonin in the short term by lower excretion in urine from nurses working the night compared to day shift on a workday and on a day off as well. No significant differences were observed between a workday and a day off when doing day and evening shifts, irrespective of mixed and fixed schedules. Sleep length was reduced workdays (from 6.1-6.8 h) among all nurses, compared to days off (from 7.8-8.7 h).

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View full text ↗

Diurnal Urinary 6‐Sulfatoxymelatonin Levels among Healthy Danish Nurses during Work and Leisure Time

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief