Sleep quality according to chronotype in nurses working 8-hour shifts

📖 Top 30% JournalMay 8, 2024Occupational medicine (Oxford, England)

Sleep quality linked to body clock type in nurses on 8-hour shifts

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Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

64% of nurses exhibited an evening chronotype, which is associated with poorer sleep quality during day shifts.

Nurses working day shifts experienced significantly less total sleep time compared to evening and night shifts.
Sleep latency and efficiency were notably worse for nurses during day shifts than for other shift types.
Evening chronotype nurses reported poorer sleep quality during day shifts compared to those with an intermediate chronotype.
The findings suggest that chronotype may influence sleep quality in relation to shift type.

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BACKGROUND: To date, studies have been focused on sleep disturbances of nurses working during night shifts. There is a lack of understanding regarding the sleep quality of nurses working in the rapid rotation system for each type of shift work.

AIMS: To determine the relationship between chronotype and sleep quality according to shift type (i.e. day, evening and night shifts) in nurses working 8-hour rotating shifts.

METHODS: A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted from two tertiary hospitals in South Korea from December 2021 to September 2022, including nurses working 8-hour rotating shifts (N = 74). They completed questionnaires to measure general, occupational and sleep-related characteristics, chronotype, insomnia severity and daytime sleepiness. Additionally, sleep parameters were collected from actigraphy and sleep diaries for 7 days.

RESULTS: A total of 64% of nurses had an evening chronotype and 37% of nurses had an intermediate chronotype. Nurses had significantly less total sleep time and worsened sleep latency and efficiency during the day shift compared to other shift types. Compared to nurses with an intermediate chronotype, those with an evening chronotype had poorer sleep quality during day shift work.

CONCLUSIONS: Strategies to enhance nurses' sleep quality during day shifts should consider a two-level approach: individual approaches, such as improving sleep hygiene, and administrative approaches, such as establishing a chronotype-based shift system for scheduling.

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