The Sleep of Shift Workers in a UK Financial Organisation and Associations with Mental, Physical, Social and Cognitive Health

Abstract

Shift workers are vulnerable to circadian misalignment, sleep disturbance and increased risk of impaired health. Studies concerning the sleep and health of individuals working shifts in the financial sector are lacking. We investigated sleep quality, sleep duration and associations with health in a UK financial organisation. Employees (n = 178; 61% male) completed an online survey comprising the SSI, PSQI, GAD-7, PHQ-9, WAFCS, EMQ-R and BMI. Three-quarters of employees reported poor sleep quality. Poorer sleep quality and shorter sleep duration were both associated with greater anxiety and depression symptoms. However, sleep quality demonstrated greater explained variance with symptom severity (anxiety: Rs2 difference = 13.2%; depression: Rs2 difference = 21.8%). Poorer sleep quality was associated with higher BMI, greater work-to-family conflict and poorer everyday memory (rs = 0.26–0.29), while shorter sleep duration was only significantly associated with higher BMI. Sleep quality did not differ depending on the nightshift type (“permanent”/“other”). Sleep achieved was shorter than perceived sleep-need for all consecutive shift types—especially night shifts (40 min–1 h 24 min). This preliminary study suggests that sleep quality, and to a lesser extent sleep duration, are associated with a range of health outcomes for shift workers within the financial sector, highlighting the need to increase organisational awareness of the importance of sleep for employee health.