The influence of shift-work on perceived stress, sleep quality, and body mass index among emergency nurses

ABSTRACT

Shift-work leads to many negative health outcomes among nurses, including overweight/obesity, high stress level, and sleep disturbances. This study purposed to evaluate the influence of shift-work on perceived stress, sleep quality, and Body Mass Index (BMI) among emergency department (ED) nurses in Jordan. A descriptive correlational design was employed. A structured self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from emergency nurses in government and private hospitals. A total of 450 emergency nurses responded to the questionnaire. Findings found that around 81.1% and 14.0% of the study participants endorsed moderate and high levels of stress, respectively. The majority of the participants (94.5%) had poor sleep quality; 35.3% had overweight and 18.7% had obesity. The study findings indicated that shift-work influenced on perceived stress (β  = 0.18, p < .001) and BMI (β  = 0.15, p < .001). The mixed shift-workers had lower perceived stress and higher BMI than their counterparts who were doing other shift-work categories. Hence, shift-work had a negative influence on the levels of perceived stress and BMI. Hence, this influence should be taken into consideration when planning interventions and strategies to minimize the negative effects of shift-work.

KEYWORDS:

• Body mass index
• emergency nurses
• perceived stress
• sleep quality

Author contributions

M.M. contributed to acquisition of data, interpretation of data, drafting the manuscript, and revising it for intellectual content. R.A. contributed to interpretation of data by drafting the manuscript, and revising it for intellectual content. M.A contributed to analysis of data, interpretation of data, and drafting the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan). Also, the approval to conduct this study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at hospitals with reference No# (MOH/REC/2019/211).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.