☻☻Contact : Hsi-Che Shen E-mail:shen@tpch.tw ☻☻

1. A Study on Employees’ Sleep Condition and Quality in A Public Hospital in Taiwan Background Sleep dysfunction has an ill effect on other living styles, causing cardiovascular diseases and chronic fatigue. Health promoting hospitals are responsible for all their own employees as well. With their professional abilities and distinctive nature of work, hospital employees are facing enormous pressure and potential threats from their working environment. Since employees work on shifts, their sleep condition is adversely affected. Considering that employees are a hospital’s vital assets and that their health in body and mind has much to do with patients’ safety, this study is committed to making an in-depth analysis of their sleep condition and quality. Materials and Methods The subjects of this study were all the 642 employees in a public hospital and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used. In total, 567 employees sent back questionnaires. Consequently, the response rate is 88% and Cronbach’s alpha for the overall scale is 0.7. The questionnaires were analyzed by using statistical software SPSS, namely descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and Scheffe’s post-hoc comparison test, so as to understand the sleep condition and quality of employees in different positions. Hsi-Che Shen1, Yu-Mei Lu2 1Superintendent Office,2Nursing Department, Taipei County Hospital, Taipei County, Taiwan Abstract This study aims at making detailed investigations into hospital employees’ sleep condition and quality. All the 642 employees in a public hospital were taken as study subjects and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was utilized. It is found that employees with poor sleep quality (PSQI>5) account for 89.4% and the average score for employees’ sleep quality is 9.51. The employees who feel that they have had much workload, have been under heavy pressure, have always been unsatisfied with their working environment and have worked on night shifts in recent six months suffer from poorer sleep quality. In particular, nurses have the worst sleep quality when compared to other employees in different positions. Furthermore, the employees’ scores in various positions show a striking contrast in the aspects of subjective sleep quality, sleep latency and daytime dysfunction. Keywords: hospital employees, sleep condition, sleep quality Background Sleep dysfunction has an ill effect on other living styles, causing cardiovascular diseases and chronic fatigue. Health promoting hospitals are responsible for all their own employees as well. With their professional abilities and distinctive nature of work, hospital employees are facing enormous pressure and potential threats from their working environment. Since employees work on shifts, their sleep condition is adversely affected. Considering that employees are a hospital’s vital assets and that their health in body and mind has much to do with patients’ safety, this study is committed to making an in-depth analysis of their sleep condition and quality. Furthermore, nurses’ average score in sleep latency is obviously higher than medical technologists, administrators and doctors (p<0.05). 33% of nurses cannot fall asleep until they lie in bed for half an hour and 44.2% of them have such a sleep habit over once a week. It is clear that nurses get a higher score than administrators in the aspects of daytime dysfunction (p<0.05). 23.5% of nurses doze at least once a week when they are at meals, in public places, or even driving a car. Conclusion Employees’ sleep quality in hospitals is generally poor. In addition, employees who feel that they have heavy workload, work under heavy pressure, and are unsatisfied with their current working environment, as well as nurses and other employees working on night shifts in recent six months suffer the worst. In the future, great efforts should be made to find out related factors which affect sleep quality and to promote health plan in working places for the purpose of improving the employees’ health. Materials and Methods The subjects of this study were all the 642 employees in a public hospital and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used. In total, 567 employees sent back questionnaires. Consequently, the response rate is 88% and Cronbach’s alpha for the overall scale is 0.7. The questionnaires were analyzed by using statistical software SPSS, namely descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and Scheffe’s post-hoc comparison test, so as to understand the sleep condition and quality of employees in different positions Result The result shows that employees with poor sleep quality (PSQI>5) account for 89.4% and the average score for employees’ sleep quality is 9.51. Those who perceive that their workload is always very heavy obviously suffer from poorer sleep quality when compared to those who think that their workload is often very heavy, sometimes very heavy and not very heavy (p<0.05). Those who think that their work pressure is always very heavy apparently have worse sleep quality than those who think that their work pressure is often very heavy, sometimes very heavy and not very heavy (p<0.05). Those who are always unsatisfied with their working environment evidently have more unfavourable sleep quality than those who are often unsatisfied, sometimes unsatisfied and satisfied with their working environment (p<0.05). Employees in various positions get quite different scores in the aspects of personal subjective sleep quality, sleep latency and daytime dysfunction (p<0.05). Nurses have poorer sleep quality in comparison with medical technologists, administrators and doctors (p<0.05). Besides, nurses working on night shifts in recent six months have poorer sleep quality in comparison with doctors, medical technologists and administrators working on day shifts. Table 1. Pittsburgh sleep quality index; PSQI: component and global scores Figure1. Various positions employees PSQI scores: Poor Sleepers (PSQI>5) & Good Sleepers (PSQI<5) ☻☻Contact : Hsi-Che Shen E-mail:shen@tpch.gov.tw ☻☻ Care with Compassion, Devoted to health promotion