Sleep Quality and Stress Levels Among Nurses: A Single Center Study

Abstract

The issue of nurses' sleep quality, which has a significant impact on their mental health, has not received enough attention. Nurses’ stress and mental health can affect patient care, so poor sleep quality in nurses can lead to stress and patient harm. Thus, this study examines the relationship between sleep quality and stress in nurses at a university hospital in Kuantan, Malaysia. This cross-sectional study used convenience sampling. A total of 101 nurses in the hospital were recruited to complete a series of questionnaires, including the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and the depression anxiety stress scale 21 (DASS21). SPSS version 23.0 was used to analyze the data. Hypothesis testing was conducted with an independ-ent sample t-test. The mean age of the participants was 27.2 ± 4.15 years; 88.1% of the participants were Malay and 98.0% were female. A total of 86.1% nurses reported having poor sleep quality. Most (76.2%) had normal stress levels, 9.9% were mildly stressed, and 5.0% were moderately stressed. According to the findings, 5.0% of nurses had extremely severe stress, and 4.0% had severe stress. Poor sleepers had a higher stress score (t 93.984 = -6.395, p < .001). This study suggests that sleep quality may have an impact on the psychological wellbeing of nurses. Thus, hospital administrations must address this issue for nurses to help them provide high-quality patient care.