Key result
Working night shifts significantly increased median reaction times on a psychomotor vigilance task compared to morning shifts (p=0.002), an effect that was exacerbated in nurses with poor sleep quality.
Why the study?
Altered sleep/wake rhythms in night-shift nurses are associated with deteriorated cognitive efficiency, but how night shifts affect psychomotor performance, sleepiness, and tiredness, and whether poor sleep quality, sex, age, or job experience impact adaptation, required evaluation.
Does night shift work compared to daytime shifts worsen psychomotor performance, sleepiness, and tiredness in rotating shift nurses?
Observational (n=86)
Yes
Does night shift work compared to daytime shifts worsen psychomotor performance, sleepiness, and tiredness in rotating shift nurses?
p-value: p=0.002
Night shifts significantly impair sustained attention and increase sleepiness in nurses, and this effect is exacerbated in those with pre-existing poor sleep quality.
Night shifts worsen nurse psychomotor performance when sleep quality is poor; leaves open whether screening or interventions alter outcomes.
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.
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Muzio et al. (2020) conducted an observational in Shift work (n=86). Night shift vs. Morning and afternoon shifts was evaluated on Median reaction time on the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) (p=0.002). Working night shifts significantly increased median reaction times on a psychomotor vigilance task compared to morning shifts (p=0.002), an effect that was exacerbated in nurses with poor sleep quality.
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