Evidence Hub

Association of sleep disturbance with shift work, occupational stress, and musculoskeletal pain in Chinese public hospital emergency workers: A multicentre cross-sectional study

H. Dong, Qiong Zhang, Zhenkun Zhang, Chunji Zhu

Chronobiology International, 2022

20 citations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Poor sleep, which is reportedly prevalent among healthcare professionals, could lead to various detrimental consequences. This study aimed to investigate the sleep quality of individuals working in emergency departments of public hospitals in China and explore the potential factors influencing sleep disturbance. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 7688 emergency workers from 147 public hospitals in Shandong, China. Log-binomial regression analysis was performed to explore the relationship of sleep disturbance with possible influencing factors, including individual and work characteristics, occupational stress, shift work, and musculoskeletal pain. The participants’ mean Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score was 9.6 ± 4.8, with 5341 (69.5%, 68.2–70.7%) of them experiencing sleep disturbance. The sleep quality was poorer in doctors (10.2 ± 5.1, 71.0%, 69.0–73.0%) than in nurses (9.2 ± 4.5, 68.6%, 67.0–70.1%), and poorer in those working in secondary (9.9 ± 4.5, 70.2%, 68.0–72.3%) and tertiary (12.2 ± 4.9, 77.5%, 75.3–79.7%) hospitals than in primary hospitals (8.0 ± 4.1, 64.6%, 62.6–66.6%). High prevalence of sleep disturbance was significantly associated with shift work, occupational stress, musculoskeletal pain, fewer breaks in a work shift, and less exercise during leisure time, after adjusting for confounding variables. Sleep disturbance occurred in emergency workers in the following order: two-shift rotation > three-shift rotation > permanent night…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cross-sectional, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free