Sleep health is associated with next-day mindful attention in healthcare workers

Abstract

Objectives: Previous studies have focused on the role of mindfulness in improving sleep health. Sleep health may also increase daily mindfulness; however, this potential directionality is understudied, with a lack of research on healthcare workers who need high-quality sleep and mindful attention for patient care. This study examined whether sleep health predicts next-day mindful attention, and vice versa, in nurses.

Design: Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment.

Setting: U.S. hospitals.

Participants: Sixty-one full-time nurses.

Measurements: For 2 consecutive weeks, participants provided actigraphy-measured and self-reported daily sleep characteristics. We examined 8 sleep variables across 5 key dimensions: satisfaction (self-report of sleep sufficiency, quality, and insomnia symptoms), alertness (self-report of daytime sleepiness), timing (actigraphy bed- and wake- times), efficiency (actigraphy percentage of time spent asleep during time in bed), and duration (actigraphy sleep duration). Participants reported state mindfulness specific to attention and awareness. Covariates included previous night's sleep, sociodemographics, work shift, workday (vs. nonworkday), and weekend (vs. weekday).

Results: Multilevel modeling revealed that, at the within-person level, after nights with greater sleep sufficiency, better sleep quality, lower efficiency, and longer sleep duration, daily mindful attention was greater than usual. Daily mindful attention was inversely associated with sleepiness, but not predictive of other sleep characteristics. At the between-person level, participants with greater sleep sufficiency, higher sleep quality, and fewer insomnia symptoms reported greater mindful attention overall.

Conclusion: Findings show that optimal sleep health is an antecedent of daily mindful attention in nurses. Improving sleep may provide important benefits to their well-being and to the quality of patient care.

Keywords: Actigraphy; Attention; Ecological momentary assessment; Mindfulness; Nurses; Sleep health.