Abstract
BackgroundThis study investigates the prevalence of symptoms of shift work disorder in a sample of nurses, and its association to individual, health and work variables.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe investigated three different shift work disorder assessment procedures all based on current diagnostic criteria and employing symptom based questions. Crude and adjusted logistic regression analyses were performed with symptoms of shift work disorder as the dependent variable. Participants (n = 1968) reported age, gender, work schedule, commuting time, weekly work hours, children in household, number of nights and number of shifts separated by less than 11 hours worked the last year, use of bright light therapy, melatonin and sleep medication, and completed the Bergen Insomnia Scale, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Global Sleep Assessment Questionnaire, Diurnal Scale, Revised Circadian Type Inventory, Dispositional Resilience (Hardiness) Scale – Revised, Fatigue Questionnaire, questions about alcohol and caffeine consumption, as well as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.Conclusions/SignificancePrevalence rates of symptoms of shift work disorder varied from 32.4–37.6% depending on the assessment method and from 4.8–44.3% depending on the work schedule. Associations were found between symptoms of shift work disorder and age, gender, circadian type, night work, number of shifts separated by less than 11 hours and number of nights worked the last year, insomnia and anxiety. The different assessment procedures yielded similar results (prevalence and logistic regression analyses). The prevalence of symptoms indicative of shift work disorder was high. We argue that three symptom-based questions used in the present study adequately assess shift work disorder in epidemiological studies.
Highlights
In modern-day Western societies, round- the-clock performance is expected in many occupations
To ensure that the reported symptoms could be regarded as clinically severe, and that they were associated with the nurse’s work schedule, we investigated two other procedures for assessing Shift work disorder (SWD) caseness, based on the ICSD2 criteria: one controlling for symptoms of various sleep disorders based on responses to the Global Sleep Assessment Questionnaire (GSAQ) [7] and one based on scores above clinical cut-offs on standardized self-report measures of insomnia [8], and sleepiness [9]
When using the three symptom-based questions, we found that a total of 37.6% of the nurses fulfilled the criteria for SWD
Summary
In modern-day Western societies, round- the-clock performance is expected in many occupations. We explored two other assessment procedures in order to study the impact these may have on the prevalence rate These other procedures included fulfilling the criteria for insomnia and excessive sleepiness as well as excluding participants with other possible sleep disorders. (II) Study the relationship between symptoms of SWD and work schedule (e.g. day or night work, number of shifts separated by less than hours off duty, and number of nights worked over the last months), gender, age and health problems including insomnia, excessive sleepiness, fatigue, anxiety and depression; as well as: Commuting time, average number of hours worked per week, presence of children in the household, alcohol and caffeine consumption, sleeping aids and personality variables (circadian type, diurnal type and hardiness). We expected a positive relationship between symptoms of SWD and various health problems, which would highlight the impact of SWD as well as indicate that our SWD self-report measurement adequately discriminated between SWD-positive and SWD-negative subjects
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