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Public health
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Does knowledge of sleep hygiene recommendations match behaviour in Australian shift workers? A cross-sectional study
  1. Caroline M Rampling,
  2. Charlotte Cecelia Gupta,
  3. Alexandra E Shriane,
  4. Sally A Ferguson,
  5. Gabrielle Rigney,
  6. Grace E Vincent
  1. Appleton Institute, Central Queensland University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Grace E Vincent; g.vincent{at}cqu.edu.au

Abstract

Objectives Shiftworkers routinely obtain inadequate sleep, which has major health consequences. Sleep hygiene describes a range of behaviours, lifestyle and environmental factors that can improve sleep. To date, limited research has examined sleep hygiene in shiftworkers. This study aimed to assess the sociodemographic and behavioural correlates of sleep hygiene knowledge and engagement with sleep hygiene practices in Australian shiftworkers.

Study design An online, cross-sectional survey.

Setting and participants Australian adults from across multiple industries (n=588) who work shift work.

Measures The online survey included questions regarding sleep hygiene knowledge and questions from modified versions of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Sleep Hygiene Index.

Results Of the 588 participants, 52.9% reported having heard of ‘sleep hygiene’. Of these participants, 77.5% reported understanding the term moderately, extremely or very well. Engagement with each sleep hygiene practice was varied. Common sleep hygiene practices were controlling the bedroom environment (eg, a cool, dark and quiet bedroom). Less common practices were avoiding light as bedtime approaches. Logistic regressions revealed that shiftworkers who had heard of sleep hygiene were more likely to engage in sleep hygiene practices and had better sleep quality compared with those who had not heard of sleep hygiene. Increased engagement in sleep hygiene practices did not predict the likelihood of individuals reporting better sleep quality.

Conclusions Shiftworkers demonstrated varied knowledge, understanding and engagement with individual sleep hygiene practices. Future research should focus on the development of sleep hygiene interventions that accommodate the unique challenges of shift work to optimise sleep.

  • sleep medicine
  • public health
  • health policy
  • occupational & industrial medicine

Data availability statement

Data are available on reasonable request.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-059677

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    Data availability statement

    Data are available on reasonable request.

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @CarolineRampl13, @cc_gupta

    • CMR and CCG contributed equally.

    • Contributors Conceptualisation, CMR, GEV and CCG; methodology, CMR and CCG; formal analysis, CMR; data analysis, CMR; data interpretation, CMR, GEV, and CCG; writing—original draft preparation, CMR; writing—review and editing, CMR, CCG, AES, SF, GR and GEV; supervision, GEV and CCG; guarantor, GEV. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to be held accountable for the content therein.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.