Nurses who work the night shift report more sleep disturbances and are more likely to suffer from psychological and physical health symptoms including PTSD, insomnia and inflammation, a recent study found.

Though effective interventions exist for many different sleep disorders, including insomnia and nightmares, those techniques are often not widely known or offered to patients such as nurses who could benefit from them.

«I think the main finding here is that sleep is important and should not be overlooked when we’re considering the picture of someone’s health, especially in fields that require a lot of attention and care and emotional involvement, like nursing,» said Jessee Dietch, co-author on the study and an assistant professor of psychology in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts.

The study, conducted in 2018, involved 392 nurses who reported their sleep experiences in daily sleep diaries for 14 days, noting duration, quality, efficiency — how long they were in bed versus how long they were asleep — and nightmare severity.

Researchers also took blood samples at the halfway point to test for general immune response and inflammation.

Based on the results, the researchers sorted participants into three sleep classes: 80.4% reported good overall sleep; 11.2% had poor overall sleep; and 8.4% were in the «nightmares only» group, with mostly average sleep but above average levels of nightmare severity.

Story Source:
Materials provided by Oregon State University. Original written by Molly Rosbach. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.