Do Rotating Night Shifts Change Nurses’ Nutritional Status? A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective:

Shift work disrupts circadian rhythms through environmental factors such as disruption of the light-dark and rest-activity cycle. This study aims to evaluate the nutritional status, circadian phenotype, sleep quality, and anthropometric measurements in nurses working in rotating night shifts.

Method:

The study included 44 nurses working in rotating night shifts. Physical activity records for 4 days and 24-hour dietary recalls for 7 days were taken. To evaluate the circadian phenotypes and sleep quality, the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire and the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index were used, respectively.

Results:

Most nurses were evening chronotype and had poor sleep quality. Shift work was associated with higher daily energy intake and lower total daily energy expenditure (p < 0.05). On the night shifts, while fiber-rich foods such as beans and fruit consumption decrease, the consumption of fats, sweets, and cereals increases. While carbohydrates, total fat, and cholesterol intake were higher in only women on the night shift (p < 0.05), saturated fat and calcium intake were higher in all nurses (p < 0.05). While the water intake of the nurses was lower on the night shift (p < 0.05), tea intake was higher in women (p < 0.05). A correlation was found between total shift work duration, body mass index (r = 0.525), waist circumference (r = 0.577), waist–height ratio (r = 0.584), and body fat percentage (r = 0.513) (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

Nurses should be encouraged to ensure adequate water intake and to make healthy food choices during the night shift to maintain health and work performance.

Keywords:

• Shift work
• nutrition
• sleep quality
• chronotype
• circadian rhythm

Acknowledgments

This work is part of the Master of Science thesis submitted by HGU to Hacettepe University Graduate School of Health Sciences, Programme of Nutritional Sciences.

Credit authorship contribution statement

Hande Gül Ulusoy: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, writing—original draft. Nevin Sanlier: supervision, writing—review and editing. Neslişah Rakıcıoğlu: visualization, investigation, supervision, writing—review and editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to disclose.