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. 2021 May;8(3):1325-1335.
doi: 10.1002/nop2.749. Epub 2020 Dec 23.

Mental health shame, self-compassion and sleep in UK nursing students: Complete mediation of self-compassion in sleep and mental health

Yasuhiro Kotera  1 , Vicky Cockerill  2 , James G E Chircop  3 , Dawn Forman  2
Affiliations

Mental health shame, self-compassion and sleep in UK nursing students: Complete mediation of self-compassion in sleep and mental health

Yasuhiro Kotera et al. Nurs Open. 2021 May.

Abstract

Aims: To explore relationships between mental health problems, mental health shame, self-compassion and average length of sleep in UK nursing students. The increasing mental health problems in nursing students may be related to a strong sense of shame they experience for having a mental health problem. Self-compassion has been identified as a protective factor for mental health and shame in other student populations. Further, studies highlight the importance of sleep relating to mental health.

Design: A cross-sectional design.

Methods: A convenient sampling of 182 nursing students at a university in the East Midlands completed a paper-based questionnaire regarding these four constructs, from February to April 2019. Correlation, regression and mediation analyses were conducted.

Results: Mental health problems were positively related to shame and negatively related to self-compassion and sleep. Mental health shame positively predicted and self-compassion negatively predicted mental health problems: sleep was not a significant predictor of mental health problems. Lastly, self-compassion completely mediated the impacts of sleep on mental health problems (negative relationship between mental health problems and sleep was fully explained by self-compassion).

Conclusion: The importance of self-compassion was highlighted as it can reduce mental health problems and shame. Self-compassion can protect nursing students from mental distress when they are sleep deprived.

Impact: Nurses and nursing students are required to work irregular hours (e.g. COVID-19) and mental distress can cause serious consequences in clinical practice. Our findings suggest that nurturing self-compassion can protect their mental health and the negative impacts of sleep deprivation on mental health.

Keywords: mediation analysis; mental health; mental health shame; nursing students; self-care; self-compassion; sleep.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Self‐compassion completely mediates sleep and mental health problems. Direct effect (total effect) of sleep on mental health problems. Parallel mediation: sleep as a predictor of mental health problems, mediated by self‐compassion. The confidence interval for the indirect effect is a BCa‐bootstrapped CI based on 5,000 samples. Values attached to arrows are coefficients indicating impacts. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001
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