Abstract

Context: Exposure to shift works especially to night shift goes against the Circadian rhythm of the social man which brings about a multitude of disruptive effects on health like sleep disturbances, day sleepiness, decreased cognitive performance, fatigue, increased risk of accidents, poor quality of life and vigilance troubles. Purpose: Evaluate Sleep quality amongst hospital shift working nurses using Pittsburgh sleep index. Methodology: Fifty of each night, day shift workers & those who never exposed to shift work participated in this study (n=150). Sleep quality & seven domains of sleep, subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances, use of sleeping medication and daytime dysfunction was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire. Inter and intra group analysis done using ANOVA & Tukey’s post hoc analysis. Results: Global score of PSQI, subjective sleep quality, sleep duration and sleep medication were statistically high amongst night shift workers suggesting poor sleep quality compared to day shift and controls (p =0.021*, p=0.021*, p=0.00*, p=0.00**). About 52% (n=26) and 25% (n=12) of night and day shift workers reports poor quality of sleep. Conclusion: Night shift nurses have poor quality of sleep when compared to day shift workers and those who were never exposed to shift work.

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