Quality of sleep among nurses working in critical care units: A cross-sectional study

Critical care nurses often face sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disturbances, affecting their well-being and patient safety. Although global research highlights this issue, Indian data remain scarce. Globally, the literature has shreds of evidence about the poor quality of sleep in critical care nurses but there is a paucity of data regarding this issue in the Indian scenario. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the quality of sleep among nurses working in critical care units and to find its association with the sociodemographic variable.

A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from April 2021 to January 2022 among 251 critical care nurses in adult, pediatric, neonatal, and neurology ICUs of a tertiary care hospital. Nurses with at least 3 months of ICU experience were included. Nurses who were not willing to participate and had psychiatric, chronic respiratory, cardiac illness, obesity, or pregnancy were excluded. Total enumerative sampling was used. The data were collected using Sociodemographic Information Performa and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 20.0.

The mean score of PSQI was 6.23 ± 2.92 and 62% of critical care nurses had poor quality of sleep. A significant association was found between the quality of sleep with marital status (P = 0.02) and history of smoking (P = 0.04).

Most (62%) critical care nurses reported poor sleep quality, significantly associated with marital and smoking status. Implementing sleep hygiene education and lifestyle-focused wellness programs can enhance nurses' well-being and promote safer, more effective patient care.