Sleep Quality and Depression Symptoms Among Nurses Working Night Shifts (Saudi Arabia)
Summary
This cross-sectional study surveyed 191 nurses in Saudi Arabia to explore how night-shift work relates to sleep quality and depressive symptoms. Nurses working night shifts reported significantly poorer sleep quality on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) compared with day-shift nurses. They also showed higher scores on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), indicating more depressive symptoms. Analysis revealed that both longer work hours and inadequate sleep were independently linked to higher rates of depressive symptoms among the nurses.
Why It Matters For Night Shift Workers and Night Owls
The study highlights how disrupted sleep from night-shift schedules is closely tied to mood problems like depression. While it doesn’t prove that night shifts directly cause depression, it shows that poor-quality sleep and long hours are strong risk factors. For night-shift workers, this means that protecting your sleep—by finding ways to improve sleep quality and limiting excessive hours when possible—may be an important step toward protecting mental health.
Notes
Open access.