Extent, range, and nature of studies examining sleep in nurses: a scoping review protocol

This scoping review aims to comprehensively map the extent, range, and nature of studies that examine the various dimensions of nurses' sleep across all health care settings or countries.

Over the past 2 decades, the importance of sleep for nurses has gained increasing attention from health care administrators, researchers, and policymakers. Despite growing research in the area, it remains unclear as to how research on sleep in nurses aligns with emerging concepts in sleep medicine more broadly, particularly in terms of how outcomes and predictors are associated with different dimensions of sleep.

This review will consider sources of evidence reporting on nurses who hold professional accreditation, such as a registered nurse or equivalent, regardless of career stage or specialty. This review will include primary studies that examine nurses' sleep. All dimensions of sleep (eg, duration, timing, variability, quality, common disorders) reported objectively or subjectively will be considered for inclusion.

This review will follow a modified version of the JBI methodology for scoping reviews and will be reported in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Databases to be searched include MEDLINE (Ovid), Emcare (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), and Scopus. A 3-step search strategy will be undertaken to identify primary studies published in English, with no date limit. Both double-screening and single-screening of titles and abstract records and of full-text reports will be used, with discussion to resolve any conflicts prior to single-screening. Data extraction will similarly involve duplicate extraction, followed by single extraction, with discrepancies resolved in a group meeting as needed. The data extracted will include specific details about the nursing population, sleep dimension, outcome measures, methodology, and key findings. Figurative, tabular, and accompanying narrative synthesis will be used to present the results in line with the review questions.

Open Science Framework https://osf.io/rzc4m.