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. 2017 Dec 22:5:288.
doi: 10.3389/fped.2017.00288. eCollection 2017.

Sleep Characteristics of the Staff Working in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Based on a Survey

Yolanda Puerta  1 , Mirian García  1   2   3 , Elena Heras  1 , Jesús López-Herce  1   2   3 , Sarah N Fernández  1   2 , Santiago Mencía  1   3 ; Sleep Study Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Sleep Characteristics of the Staff Working in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Based on a Survey

Yolanda Puerta et al. Front Pediatr. .

Erratum in

Abstract

The objective is to evaluate the sleep characteristics of the staff working in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). They were asked to complete an anonymous survey concerning the characteristics and quality of their sleep, as well as the impact of sleep disturbances on their work and social life, assessed by Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ)-10 questionnaire. The response rate was 84.6% (85% females): 17% were doctors, 57% nurses, 23% nursing assistants, and 3% porters. 83.8% of them worked on fix shifts and 16.2% did 24-h shifts. 39.8% of workers considered that they had a good sleep quality and 39.8% considered it to be poor or bad. The score was good in 18.2% of the staff and bad in 81.8%. Night shift workers showed significantly worse sleep quality on both the objective and subjective evaluation. There was a weak concordance (kappa 0.267; p = 0.004) between the perceived quality of sleep and the FOSQ-10 evaluation. Sleep disorders affected their emotional state (30.2% of workers) and relationships or social life (22.6%). In conclusion, this study finds that a high percentage of health professionals from PICU suffer from sleep disorders that affect their personal and social life. This negative impact is significantly higher in night shift workers. Many health workers are not aware of their bad sleep quality.

Keywords: health professionals; pediatric intensive care unit; shift work; sleep disorders; sleep quality.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sleep quality comparison between professional categories. Nurse assistants had worse sleep quality than the rest of workers, according to both perception and to the Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ)-10. *There is a significant difference between doctors and nurse assistants according to “poor-quality perception” (p = 0.08), and also between nurses vs nurse assistants according to either “poor-quality perception” or FOSQ-10 < 18 (p = 0.001 and p = 0.019).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sleep quality comparison between nurses’ work shifts. Night shift nurses had worse sleep quality (perception, p = 0.02; Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire-10, p = 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison between work shifts of the impact of sleep disorders on daily life activities and relationships. Workers who had worse sleep quality according to Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire-10 also had a greater impact on their daily life activities.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Concordance between perceived sleep quality and Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ)-10 questionnaire according to each professional category. The best concordance between perceived sleep quality and FOSQ-10 results was for the nurse assistants group.
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