This study is a descriptive survey aiming to examine the level of emotional labor, fatigue, and quality of sleep and identify the effects of emotional labor and fatigue on quality of sleep in clinical nurses.
One hundred and fifty-eight clinical nu...
This study is a descriptive survey aiming to examine the level of emotional labor, fatigue, and quality of sleep and identify the effects of emotional labor and fatigue on quality of sleep in clinical nurses.
One hundred and fifty-eight clinical nurses who work at one of three 200-bed or more general hospitals in the cities of J and I and signed an informed consent to participate in the study were enrolled. Data were collected from July 1, 2021 to July 20, 2021, and after excluding one questionnaire with incomplete responses, a total of 151 questionnaires were included in the data analysis. The collected data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS WIN 26.0 program. General and job-related characteristics were presented as real number and percentage or mean and standard deviation, and emotional labor, fatigue, and quality of sleep were presented as mean and standard deviation. Differences in emotional labor, fatigue, and quality of sleep according to general and job-related characteristics were analyzed with t-tests and ANOVA, followed by LSD for post-hoc comparison. The correlations among emotional labor, fatigue, and quality of sleep were analyzed with Pearson’s Correlation coefficients, and the effects of general and job-related characteristics, emotional labor, and fatigue on quality of sleep were analyzed with hierarchical multiple regression.
The following results were obtained:
1. The mean emotional labor score was 3.32±0.66, with 3.55±0.78 for frequency of emotional display, 3.37±0.67 for attentiveness to required display rules, and 3.05±0.89 for emotional dissonance. The mean fatigue score was 3.50±0.57, with 3.71±0.61 for daily dysfunctioning, 3.69±0.59 for situational fatigue, and 3.22±0.70 for global fatigue. The mean quality of sleep score was 7.68±3.15, with 1.92±0.96 for sleep latency, 1.52±0.62 for subjective sleep quality, 1.25±0.58 for sleep disturbance, 1.17±0.78 for daytime dysfunction, 0.96±0.99 for sleep duration, 0.78±1.08 for habitual sleep efficiency, and 0.09±0.38 for use of sleeping medication.
2. There were no significant differences in emotional labor according to participants’ demographic and job-related characteristics.
3. Fatigue was higher among women (t=-2.15, p=.033) but did not vary according to job-related characteristics.
4. Quality of sleep was poorer among singles (t=2.19, p=.030), those with a career of between 36–59 months in the current unit (F=3.94, p=.010), and those with “increased” emotional labor since the COVID-19 pandemic (F=3.19, p=.026).
5. There was a significant positive correlation between quality of sleep and emotional labor (r=.36, p<.001), between quality of sleep and fatigue (r=.36, p<.001), and emotional labor and fatigue (r=.50, p<.001).
6. The predictors of quality of sleep were marital status, changes of emotional labor due to COVID-19, and fatigue, where quality of sleep was higher among married individuals (β=-.23, p=.003) and poorer among those with increased emotional labor due to COVID-19 (β=.22, p=.013) and higher fatigue (β=.23, p=.008). These factors explained for 21.2% of the variance of quality of sleep in clinical nurses (F=7.67, p<.001).
This study observed that the overall quality of sleep was poor and that marital status, changes of emotional labor due to COVID-19, and fatigue significantly predicted overall quality of sleep among clinical nurses. Thus, subsequent studies should investigate the physical and emotional aspects of clinical nurses in order to develop intervention programs that enhance quality of sleep.