Aims: To determine whether night shift workers have a poorer diet quality and sleep quality when compared with day shift nurses.
Background: There is a dearth of research investigating the association between diet quality and sleep quality of day and night shift nurses.
Methods: Data on nurses (n = 103) working either a day or night shift from two Midwestern hospitals were obtained from August 2015 to February 2016. The instruments used were the Diet History Questionnaire and the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index. Independent samples t-tests were used to examine differences in diet and sleep quality by work shift schedule.
Results: There were no statistically significant differences between nurses working day or night shift and sleep quality (P = 0.0684), as well as diet quality (P = 0.6499). There was a significant difference between both body mass index (P = 0.0014) and exercise (P = 0.0020) with regard to diet quality. Body mass index and sleep quality were also significantly associated (P = 0.0032).
Conclusion: Our study found no differences between day and night shift with regard to sleep and diet quality among nurses.
Implications for nursing management: Deliberate health initiatives and wellness programmes specifically targeting nurses are needed to increase knowledge about maintaining a healthy lifestyle while working as a nurse, whether it is day or night shift.
Keywords: diet quality; nurses; shift work; sleep quality.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.