Previous studies revealed the prevalence of Sleep Disorders in nurses but not incidence, with only self-report data in cross-sectional study. Current study conducted a retrospective cohort study with the objective clinically diagnosed data from National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) to reveal the prevalence and incidence of Sleep Disorders for the whole nurse population of Taiwan, regarding the impact of the associated demographic and work-related factors.
Methods:
All nurses licensed from 2004 to 2008 in Taiwan (N = 120,588) were enrolled. Patients who had at least 1 outpatient visit of Sleep Disorders (307.41–2 and 780.52 of ICD-9-CM.) were identified as prevalent cases from 2004 to 2008. Patients who had first outpatient visit during 2005–2008 and were not diagnosed as cases of Sleep Disorders during the previous years were identified as incident cases. New–old nurse ratio was calculated to indicate the supervision workload. Adjusted logistic regression and cox regression were performed separately to analyze the associated factors for the prevalence in 2004 and incidence density from 2005 to 2008.
Results:
Current results disclosed that prevalence was lower than that in previous studies. Besides, incident cases were increasing from 2005 to 2008 with steady annual incidence density. Both demographic and work-related factors provided relatively comprehensive revealing the associated factors of Sleep Disorders in Taiwan nurses. Current findings in work year specific and new-old nurse ratio specific prevalence and incidence suggested that these two work-related factors were associated with both prevalence and incidence. Higher prevalence and incidence were associated with higher age, female, less work year, and less supervision workload for nurses.
Conclusion:
Regarding the discussed differences between current findings and previous evidence, current study revealed nurses with less work year and the younger nurses had higher risk of Sleep Disorders, while nurses with higher supervision workload had lower risk. It was suggested to provide flexible shift work option to the younger nurses while to empower older nurses to supervise new nurses but less work in the field in order to mitigate the risk of Sleep Disorders.