Abstract:
Introduction: There has been an increasing growth in the population of shift workers particularly among night shift workers. Concerns are for the occupational health and safety of the workers. Increasing evidence indicates that night shift work is associated with many health diseases like obesity and metabolic syndrome. Studies have also shown that night shift work affects the dietary habits of the workers.
Objective: The aim of this study is to assess how night shift impacts a person’s diet quality as measured by Healthy Eating Index (HEI) tool. HEI measures overall dietary habits with consideration of balance, moderation and variety aspects.
Methods: This is a cross sectional study done among nurses on rotating shift aged between 20 to 60 years. Subjects needed to record their intake over 24 hours for 3 days when their morning shift is on and another 3 days when their night shift is on. Nutrient analysis was done using a software called Nutritionist ProTM Diet Analysis. To translate the mean of the nutrients analysis into the scoring of HEI, excel spreadsheet was used. Data analysis was done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 17.0.
Result: In univariate analysis, total HEI score was significantly different (P<0.05) between the two shifts (Night shift 57.4 ± 10.0 < Day shift 61.8 ± 8.6). From the ten components of HEI, vegetables intake score was significantly different between the two shifts (Night shift = 2.8 ± 0.5 < Day shift = 4.1 ± 0.5). There was also a significant difference between day and night shifts for meat and legumes intake score (Night shift = 3.5± 2.0 < 4.5 ± 2.0). In multivariate analysis, variety score correlates with HEI scores. Variety of foods gave significant result with p-value of 0.047 for night shift and p-value of 0.036 for day shift.
Conclusion: Night shift work impacts shift workers’ diet quality. Future research should focus on education approaches on how to improve dietary habits of the night shift workers and environment that can support healthy lifestyle behaviours.
