Abstract
The aim of this study is to evaluate the sleep behaviors of healthcare
professionals working in secondary and tertiary hospitals in a large
population in Turkey and to show how sleep quality is affected during
the pandemic process by using the easily applicable Jenkins sleep scale
(JSS). Methods The population of this cross-sectional descriptive study
consists of two pandemic hospitals (2nd level state hospital and 3rd
level university hospital) determined in Kahramanmaraş province. Data
were collected between 03.08.2020 and 30.09.2020 with responses to
online survey questions. The security of the data was assigned to
SurveyMonkey enterprise. In our questionnaire, we asked subjective sleep
quality (poor, moderate, high), sleep time (<24:00 and
≥24:00), time to fall asleep (minutes), total sleep time (hours), and
medication use (sleeping pills). We also used Jenkins Sleep Scale
Turkish version (JSS-TR) to assess sleep quality and the Epworth
sleepiness scale (ESS) for increased daytime sleepiness. Results
Healthcare workers who participated in our survey reported that they
started to go to bed later, fell asleep later (mean: 41.75±35.35
minutes), their total sleep time (mean: 6.67±1.88 hours) was shortened,
and they needed medication to sleep more (%5.7) after the COVID-19
pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, bedtime behavior after 24:00
decreased from 80.1% to 43.9% of those who previously went to bed
before 24:00. For those who went to bed after 24:00 before, it increased
from 19.9% to 56.1%.In addition, sleep quality as assessed by
subjective and JSS significantly deteriorated after the COVID-19
pandemic. Excessive daytime sleepiness increased. Those with
ESS>10 before COVID-19 were 3.9%, post- COVID-19
ESS>10 14.1% (p<0.001). Conclusion The COVID-19
pandemic has significantly adversely affected the sleep behavior and
sleep quality of healthcare professionals. The JSS is an easily
applicable scale for assessing sleep quality in large population
studies.