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Εκτίμηση της ποιότητας του ύπνου και της ποιότητας ζωής ατόμων που εργάζονται σε εναλλασσόμενο ωράριο (Master thesis)

Κατσαούνη, Μαρία

Introduction-Aim: In health services, the need for nursing care on a full-time basis, forces nursing staff to work in rotating shifts. Many researches have demonstrated that shift work is associated with the disruption of sleep quality, the reduction of family and social life, the burden of mental health, and finally, is considered to be a risk factor for many health problems such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes etc. The purpose of this research is to study the sleep quantity and quality and to investigate the effects of the shift work on the quality of life and the health of the nursing personnel in the University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis. Method: The material of the study consisted of 312 employees, who belonged to the nursing and paramedical personnel of our hospital. One hundred ninety four (62.2%) of the participants used to work on rotating shifts, with or without night-time working hours (172 women, mean age 39.14 ± 6.92 years), while 118 nurses used to work permanently on morning shifts (101 women, mean age 39.95 ± 6.42 years). Data collection was per-formed using the following specific questionnaires: Functional Outcomes of Sleep Ques-tionnaire (FOSQ), Shift Work Disorders screening questionnaire (SWD) and WHO (FIVE) Well-Being Index (WHO-5). Results: The response rate was 53.8%. Nurses who work on shift work, showed a statisti-cally significantly worse degree compared with nurses who work permanently on morn¬ing shifts, both on FOSQ (p<0.001) and Scale WHO-5 (p<0.001) . According to the de¬gree on the scale SWD, the problem of insufficient quantity of total sleep seems to be more serious, followed by a reduced sense of well-being during the time they were awake, sleep quality and intense sleepiness while they used to work on non-standard shifts. Sleep problems were much more acute in women (p = 0.040), in people aged from 36 to 45 years (p<0.001), in married people (p=0.048), in employees with children (p=0,006), in employees with more than 3 non-standard shifts per week (p<0.001) and in those who have been working in non-standard shifts for more than 5 years (p<0.001). According to the participants' responses to Scale FOSQ’ questions, nurses working on rotating shifts are experiencing much more difficulties in "concentrating on what they do" (p<0.001), to remember various things (p<0.001) and to be regularly visited by their family or friends at their own home (p <0.001), the relationship with their families, friends or colleagues has been much more affected (p<0.001), they experience much more difficulties in watching TV (p<0.001), a film at the cinema or at home (p <0.001), or attending a theatre performance or a lecture (p<0.001), find more difficulties in being as active as they would like during the morning (p<0.001) or during the night (p<0.001), their sexual de¬sire has been much more affected (p<0.001) and finally, they find it rather difficult to drive their own vehicle for a long time (more than 1 hour) (p<0.001), because they start feeling drowsy or tired. According to the participants' responses to Scale WHO-5’ ques¬tions, nurses working on rotating shifts rarely feel happy and in a good mood (p<0.001), calm and peaceful (p<0.001), energetic, active and strong (p=0.005) and that their daily life was full of interesting things (p<0.001). Diabetes Mellitus (p=0.008) and frequent legs-shaking during the night (p=0.054), were more common in nurses working on rotat¬ing shifts. Conclusions: The present research showed that the work of nurses on rotating shifts is likely to have adverse effects on everyday life, functionality and health of workers, main¬ly due to the reduction in the sleep quantity and quality. Social and demographic charac-teristics of the nurses differentiate these impacts. Therefore, a better shifts’ program planning is being required.