COVID-19 Pandemic Impacting ZZZs for Retirement Workers
By Drs. Elizabeth Keller and Beverly Hittle
Sleep is a crucial piece of workplace health and safety. Sleep helps boost workers’ overall physical and mental wellness, including providing added protection against infections and chronic diseases. When sleep is limited and/or disrupted, workers can feel less alert, increasing risks of injuries on the job. Despite these risks to health and safety, some jobs can make it hard for workers to obtain the expert recommended 7-9 hours of daily restful sleep. Such jobs include continuing care retirement workers (CCRWs). CCRWs provide direct and indirect residential care for the elderly and those with disabilities, with roles ranging from nurses and nursing assistants to administrative and leadership staff. They are at risk for poor sleep health based on their varying shifts outside the typical 9am-5pm time frame, working long shifts, and exposure to unique stressors, such as lower wages and the emotional dedication of caretaking work.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline healthcare workers experienced a significant amount of stress, and as a result, more sleep problems than normal. Stressors included fears over contracting COVID-19, spreading the virus to family and friends, and added life stressors from how COVID-19 disrupted society. CCRWs had unique demands at work because of decreased staff at centers, increased caretaking when visiting center residents was restricted, and grief over nursing home residents who died from COVID-19. While reports indicate the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected CCRWs’ mental health, limited evidence has explored how the virus impacted their sleep. Therefore, a needs assessment was completed with three goals: 1) to better understand the sleep health of CCRWs at one retirement center, 2) to compare sleep results between types of workers in this setting, and 3) to consider how CCRWs feel about how COVID-19 has impacted their sleep. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Workplace Health Model conceptually guided this study, informing how individuals, organizations, and the environment, all impact worker sleep.
Ninety-four CCRWs completed an online or paper survey from September- November of 2020. The self-reported data indicated poor sleep overall, with 36% of participants getting below the recommended 7-hours of sleep on workdays. Of the participants, 55.3% experienced more than normal sleep disturbance, and 52.1% reported more than normal sleepiness and fatigue. This sleep assessment further revealed that workers experienced major changes in their jobs and sleep related to COVID-19, suggesting the stressors they experienced because of COVID-19 were disruptive to their sleep.
Without targeting efforts to promote sleep among this population, effects of poor sleep may persist and threaten overall worker health. Such effects include fatigue, poor coordination, decreased attention, worsening mental health issues, decreased wellbeing, increased risk for occupational injuries, along with reduced productivity and more patient care errors.Occupational health workers may consider implementing sleep health screenings in their assessments to inform priority risk areas where additional supports can be provided to CCRWs. For example, supports may include providing sleep education, regular monitoring of sleepiness and fatigue, and explaining the use of countermeasures (such as caffeine and strategic napping). Moreover, management across retirement care organizations may work to regularly schedule breaks during and between shifts and consider scheduling successive shifts in a way that promotes healthy sleeping habits.
Article Details
Retirement Center Worker Sleep Health Assessment During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Beverly M. Hittle, PhD, RN, Ruth M. Norrell, BSN, BA, RN, Shammah O. Omololu, MN, BSN, RN, and Megan Gresham-Ulrich
First published online February 3, 2022
DOI: 10.1177/21650799211054863
Workplace Health & Safety
About the Authors
