review of mental health and physical health in night working nurses in golestan university of medical sciences in 2008-2009

review of mental health and physical health in night working nurses in golestan university of medical sciences in 2008-2009 hojjati h , tahery n , sharifniyai sh received: 14 april, 2010 accepted: 27 july, 2010 abstract background & aims: night shift schedules may have negative physical, mental, and social effects on nurses and their personal life and reduces the quality of the work. this study was conducted to assess the physical and mental health of night shift nurses in hospitals of golestan university of medical sciences. materials & methods: in this descriptive study, 152 night shift nurses were involved through easy sampling method. the data were collected using questionnaires and were analyzed by descriptive statistics, (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistic (anova test, pearson and scheffe post hoc test). results: fifty two percent of the study samples had better mental health 48 % were fairly good 69 % had fairly good physical health and 2% had good physical health. there was a significant relationship between mental health associated with physical health (p<0.001). there also was a significant correlation between mental health with age (p<0/001) and job experience (p=0.002). conclusion: in order to reduce the complications of nightshifts, it is suggested to plan fixed shift schedules. proper management and programming appropriate shift schedule for nursing staff will be very helpful. keyword: mental health, physical health, nurses, nightshift address: amol universitu of medical sciences, amol, iran tel: (+98)9112739883 e-mail: [email protected]