Mental health status and quality of sleep of critical ward and general ward nurses

Pages: 823-828
Ishita Chatterjee and Debobani Saha (Department of Applied Psychology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal)

The nursing role is rapidly evolving as nurses are tasked with an even wider range of healthcare responsibilities. With an increase in complexity and demand for better healthcare system, the roles of nurses have become more challenging. A poor mental health and quality of sleep of nurses can have an impact on their day to day functioning which in turn can pose a threat, especially on the patients of critical wards as compared to other wards, because they require complex assessment and high risk treatments. Moreover, nurses are often scheduled to do rotating shifts (i.e., day, evening, night) and also have to work overtime to provide quality care to their patients around the clock. Abrupt deviations from normal timing of work often disrupt one’s internal biological clock. The present study aims to trace and compare the dimensions of positive mental health status and quality of sleep among nurses of critical and general ward of private hospitals with an age of 21 to 31yrs.To collect data, quantitative and survey research was conducted. The result showed no significant difference between the nurses of two wards with regards to their mental health status. But on the other hand, the critical ward nurses showed poor quality of sleep which is more related to ‘sleep duration’ and ‘sleep latency’. The study can be important for the administrative staffs of private hospitals, so that they can recommend and make arrangements for nurses and their duties accordingly.