TY - JOUR
T1 - Nurses and Night Shifts
T2 - Poor Sleep Quality Exacerbates Psychomotor Performance
AU - Di Muzio, Marco
AU - Diella, Giulia
AU - Di Simone, Emanuele
AU - Novelli, Luana
AU - Alfonsi, Valentina
AU - Scarpelli, Serena
AU - Annarumma, Ludovica
AU - Salfi, Federico
AU - Pazzaglia, Mariella
AU - Giannini, Anna Maria
AU - De Gennaro, Luigi
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partly supported by the Sapienza University of Rome “Progetti di Ricerca medi” (grant number RM116154BEFFAFEF).
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Di Muzio, Diella, Di Simone, Novelli, Alfonsi, Scarpelli, Annarumma, Salfi, Pazzaglia, Giannini and De Gennaro.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/10/14
Y1 - 2020/10/14
N2 - In Europe, 40% of health-care employees are involved in shift work. The altered sleep/wake rhythm of night-shift nurses is also associated with deteriorated cognitive efficiency. In this study, we examine the effects of the night shift on psychomotor performance, sleepiness, and tiredness in a large sample of shift-working nurses and evaluated if poor sleep quality, sex, age, or years on the job could impact on a better adaptation to shift work. Eighty-six nurses with 8-h-rapidly-rotating-shifts were evaluated at the end of three shifts (morning/afternoon/night) for sleepiness and tiredness. Sleepiness, as measured by the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, and tiredness, as measured by the Tiredness Symptoms Scale, were more pronounced after the night shift. These increases were paralleled by lower attentional performance on the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) after the night shift. While sex, age, and years on the job did not affect PVT performance after the night shift, lower sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality, PSQI > 5) was associated with decreased performance. The high prevalence of altered sleep quality showed that nurses, and shift workers in general, are at risk for a poor sleep quality. The evaluation of sleep quality through PSQI could represent a rapid, inexpensive tool to assess health-care workers assigned to rotating night shifts or to evaluate nurses who coped poorly with night-shift work.
AB - In Europe, 40% of health-care employees are involved in shift work. The altered sleep/wake rhythm of night-shift nurses is also associated with deteriorated cognitive efficiency. In this study, we examine the effects of the night shift on psychomotor performance, sleepiness, and tiredness in a large sample of shift-working nurses and evaluated if poor sleep quality, sex, age, or years on the job could impact on a better adaptation to shift work. Eighty-six nurses with 8-h-rapidly-rotating-shifts were evaluated at the end of three shifts (morning/afternoon/night) for sleepiness and tiredness. Sleepiness, as measured by the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, and tiredness, as measured by the Tiredness Symptoms Scale, were more pronounced after the night shift. These increases were paralleled by lower attentional performance on the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) after the night shift. While sex, age, and years on the job did not affect PVT performance after the night shift, lower sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality, PSQI > 5) was associated with decreased performance. The high prevalence of altered sleep quality showed that nurses, and shift workers in general, are at risk for a poor sleep quality. The evaluation of sleep quality through PSQI could represent a rapid, inexpensive tool to assess health-care workers assigned to rotating night shifts or to evaluate nurses who coped poorly with night-shift work.
KW - poor sleep quality
KW - psychomotor performance
KW - shift work
KW - sleepiness
KW - sustained attention
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U2 - 10.3389/fnins.2020.579938
DO - 10.3389/fnins.2020.579938
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092937286
VL - 14
JO - Frontiers in Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Neuroscience
SN - 1662-4548
M1 - 579938
ER -