Sign up for email alert when new content gets added: Sign up
Yufan Wang
University of Edinburgh, UK
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Psychiatry Ment. Health Res
Objectives: This integrative review aims to fill the gap and synthesise existing research, from 2017 to 2022, that investigates the impact of night shift work schedule on the risk of depression among nurses. Specifically, this paper hopes to answer: do nurses working night shifts experience higher risk of depression than nurses working only day shifts? This paper is also supported by a set of real-world data gathered from a group of nurses and healthcare workers in Hong Kong in 2022. This data is especially valuable, as no study has investigated the impact of night shift on depressive symptoms among nurses since the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Methods: The review was reported according to the PRISMA guidelines. Three databases, PubMed, PsycInfo, and Web of Science were systematically searched to source relevant articles. Quality of the selected studies were assessed using the STROBE checklist, before a meta-analysis was conducted. In a recent sample of Hong Kong healthcare workers, statistical associations of various variables and risk of depression were assessed using unpaired student’s t-test and linear regression, where a p- value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Night shift work was not significantly associated with the increased risk of depression among nurses in the metaanalysis of selected observational epidemiological studies. Recent data sample revealed consistent non-significant association. Conclusions: Night shift work did not significantly increase risk of depression among nurses. Other potential stressors should be investigated. This is urgent as the global pandemic has paralysed the healthcare system and placed huge responsibilities on healthcare professionals, especially nurses.
