Iran Occupational Health

  Backgroundand aims : Good quality of sleep has beneficial effects on both physical and mental health status. Nursesdue tothe natureoftheirjob and working in rotatingshiftwork , areproneto different sleep disorders. This study was undertaken to determine the sleep quality and its relationship to mental health of hospital nurses.

  Methods : In a descriptive and analytical study, which was done in Gonabad and Birjand cities, 260 nurses were selected through a stratified sampling. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) were used for sleep quality and mental health status, respectively. Data was analyzed by SPSS (V.17) software using descriptive and inferential statistics. Significance level was considered 0.05 for statistical tests.

  Results :Findings showed that 56.2 percent of nurses have poor mental health and 43.8 percent of them have good mental health. The quality of sleep was unfavorable in 69.2 percent and only 30.8 percent of them have enjoyed good quality of sleep. Chi- square test showed a significant relationship between sleep quality of nurses and their mental health (P <0.0001).

  Conclusion : This study showed that poor sleep quality in nurses has negative effects on their mental health. We suggest that the hospital’s supervisors design regular and continuous monitoring for assessing quality of sleep in nursing staff and also design suitable intervention in some cases that they have inadequate sleep quality.