Relationship Between Lifestyle Behaviors and Work Shifts Among Nurses

Abstract Background: Nursing might experience challenges as a result of changes in shift patterns and the nature of hospital work. Working in shifts leads to radical changes in the daily routine of nurses, such as possible disruptions to circadian rhythms. Objectives: The study objective is to assess the shiftwork patterns of nurses, which focus on the duration and length of each working shift. Then identify the association between work shift arrangements and nurses’ lifestyle behaviors. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was performed on a sample of 220 nurses working in hospitals in Duhok City, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. The period of data collection was from January 1, 2022, to May 1, 2022. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from nurses via direct, individualized interviews. Results: Nurses who worked the morning shift were represented between 3 and 8 days per month, accounting for 44.2% of all nurses. In addition, 64.5% of nurses worked 40–50 h per week. The majority of nurses (76.4%) worked between 5 and 6 h on a morning shift every day. Consequently, nurses who worked the morning shift had a strong correlation with lifestyle behaviors ( P value = 0.04). Conclusions: Nurses with a morning shift show healthy lifestyle behaviors as a result of having an adequate job performance schedule. However, it could be established that the diversity of work schedules, including, hours of work, days of shifts, and length of every shift, along with lifestyle characteristics, may have an impact on how well nurses handle the working shifts.