Exploration of Shift Work Among Nursing Professionals Related to Interconnected Determinants of Health in a Hospital: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Nursing professionals must fulfill their care duties within a system that requires 24-hour coverage. This necessitates hospitals implementing a shift-work sys-tem to meet care demands. Purpose: To assess sleep quality and its relationship with interconnected health varia-bles among nursing professionals working shifts. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive observational study. 247 nursing professionals, 85.8% of whom were women, aged between 21 and 65, from Son Espases University Hospital in Spain. A corporate email was sent containing a link to an online: the Pitts-burgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Munich Chronotype Questionnaire (MCTQ) to de-termine chronotype, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Memory Failures of Everyday Life Questionnaire (MFE-30), and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF), applied across different work shifts. Results: Nurses, regardless of shift work, reported poor sleep quality (score > 5), a higher proportion of undefined chronotype (60%), moderate levels of perceived stress (26 points), a tendency toward poorer general mental health (14 points), and more memory complaints (60 points), but a favorable perception of their quality of life (90 points), with no statistically significant differences found. Female professionals working rotating shifts showed significant differences, presenting a higher number of memory com-plaints compared with males. Professionals over the age of 50 working night shifts displayed significantly poorer general mental health and severe memory complaints. Conclusion/Implications for Practice: Nursing professionals show poor sleep quality, elevated stress levels, signs of emotional disorders, and moderate memory complaints, particularly on night and rotating shifts, which were observed, albeit without signifi-cantly affecting perceived quality of life. These findings support the need to implement organizational strategies that safeguard the well-being of nursing professionals and to consider individual patterns to improve sleep health. Keywords: Sleep quality, quality of life, chronotype, perceived stress, memory com-plaints, nursing professionals, general mental health.