Effect of Sleeplessness on general health of nurses who working nightshift in operation rooms in Shahid sadughi Medical University Hospitals in Yazd, Iran

Nightshift working has negative physical and social effects on personal life of nurses and in long term it affects their subsequent health. This survey was carried out to study the effect of sleeplessness on general health of nightshift nurses in operations room of Shahid Sadughi University Hospitals, Yazd, Iran during 2009-2010 In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 62 subjects who had in clouding criterias for study were included by convenient sampling among 142 nightshift nurses. Data were collected by questionnaire containing personal information, sleeplessness and general health (GHQ-28). Our results showed that the effect of sleeplessness on nurses general health was observed at moderate level in 56% and at minimum level in 2% and at maximum level in 42% of nurses. The majority of subjects (60.6%) had adequate levels of general health and 2.5% had unfavorable general health. There was a significant correlation between sleepiness) and general health of nurses so that with increasing of age, working experience at night shift working the sleepiness side effects were decreased. (P<0.05). This study showed that sleepiness negatively affects general health status of nightshift nurses so proper programming for better quality of nurse’s sleep in night shift working is necessary.