Sleep Quality and Restless Legs Syndrome among Health-care Workers: Shift Workers and Non-Shift Workers

Background and Objective: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sleep disorder with an association to sleep quality. We investigated the sleep quality in patients with RLS among health-care workers with or without shift work. Materials and Methods: All female health-care workers (n = 540) in four educational hospitals were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. International RLS Study Group (IRLSSG) questionnaire, IRLSSG Rating Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and a data collection sheet including demographic characteristics and disorders related to secondary RLS were completed by study participants. Results: The mean ± standard deviation (SD) age of the participants was 32.0 ± 6.8 years. The mean ± SD PSQI scores were 9.03 ± 3.29 and 7.30 ± 3.67 in RLS-positive and RLS-negative shift workers (P = 0.002), respectively. The mean ± SD PSQI scores were 7.76 ± 3.66 and 6.10 ± 3.15 in RLS-positive and RLS-negative non-shift workers (P = 0.005), respectively. Conclusion: Health-care workers have poor sleep quality aggravated with both RLS and shift work. RLS-positive female patients are at increased risk of poor sleep quality in both shift workers and non-shift workers with the worst score of PSQI questionnaire in shift workers.