The Effect of Night Shifts on Nurses' Health and Well-Being in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of night shift work on nurses’ health and well-being. Methods: 100 nurses in all were chosen at random from various hospital located in Itanagar. Data was collected from night shift working nurses by self-administered questionnaire through personal interview method. Data was used to gather information on socio- demographic, anthropometric measurements, professional, physical activity, food habits and intakes were collected. To study the detrimental impact of night shift employment on the health and wellbeing descriptive frequency and correlation were used. Results: One hundred nurses in all, the majority of them had one or more health issues, digestive problems includes- disturbed appetite (60%), heartburn or stomach-ache (71%), feeling nausea/ dizziness (75%), difficulty in digestion (72%) and suffer from constipation (52%). Cardiovascular problems of the respondents it was found that out of 100 respondents (16%) workers reported that they are on their high blood pressure or cardiac problems and chronic chest disorder (6%) followed by (45%) workers were low blood pressure. About 23% of nurses regularly skip meals, followed by 52% of nurses who did so once or twice, and the majority of nurses did not eat at set times. The results showed that 72% of nurses often ate fast food; only 8% of nurses took home-cooked meals with them for dinner. During night shifts, chips, cookies, sweets, and were the most popular munchies. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that nurses working nights have bad eating habits that cause their diets to be unbalanced. They eat less nutrient-dense foods but a greater number of meals that are rich in calories. They also rarely engage in any sort of exercise outdoors from what they do for a living and frequently prefer to eat snacks rather than full meals. The hospital's nurses need to get nutritional hygiene counseling, and night shift food service needs to be enhanced.