Abstract
Background
The impact of long-term night shift work is associated with greater health risks, including poorer health, reduced well-being, and higher stress levels. We aimed to investigate associations focusing on well-being, self-rated health, and stress in relation to age, gender, and job demands of night shift workers in the European health, social, and beauty sector.
Methods
Data were analyzed from the EU Shift2Health study based on an online survey of 2,425 night shift workers in the health, social and beauty sector from eight European countries (mean age: 39.3 years, with 71 % being female). Well-being was measured by the WHO-5 and stress by the PSS-4. Participants rated self-rated health, physical and mental workload in five categories. Statistical analyses included Mann-Whitney U tests, Spearman's rank-order correlations, and Pearson's chi-squared tests (p < .05).
Results
Men were more likely than women to rate their health as very good or excellent (p = .002). There were significant gender differences in perceived physical workload, with women more likely to report high levels (p = .012). The mean PSS-4 score was 6.23 and was not significantly associated with gender. A statistically significant positive correlation was found between stress and both mental (p < .001) and physical workload (p < .001). The mean WHO-5 score was 13.62, with women reporting lower levels of well-being than men (p < .001). Well-being was negatively correlated with both mental (p < .001) and physical workload (p < .001). Age was positively correlated with well-being (p < .001) and negatively correlated with self-rated health (p < .001).
Conclusions
The results indicate that occupational health programs for night workers in the study sector should be gender specific. The implementation of stress management programs is essential to improve perceived mental and physical workload.
Key messages
• Regular assessments of job demands, health, well-being, and stress enable timely interventions and improve workplace health and productivity.
• Health interventions for night shift workers in the health, social, and beauty sector should be designed to address gender and age related needs.