Short sleep in healthcare workers is linked with poorer patient safety
A review of healthcare-worker studies linked short sleep with errors and poorer cognitive functioning. Long or irregular shifts also featured, but the abstract cannot establish which factor caused the outcomes.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Across studies of healthcare workers, shorter sleep was associated with poorer patient-safety outcomes, including more errors and worse cognitive functioning. Poor sleep quality and long or irregular shifts also appeared in the review's conclusions. These associations identify a concern for care delivery, but they do not prove that sleep alone caused the problems.
The abstract does not define short sleep, specify comparison groups or provide effect sizes. It also does not report the quality-appraisal results, limiting assessment of how reliable individual associations were.
Different kinds of outcomes
The review grouped errors and cognitive functioning under patient safety. These describe different things: errors concern care delivery, while cognitive functioning concerns thinking abilities. The abstract does not explain how either outcome was measured across studies.
Sleep and working conditions
The researchers considered shift patterns and workload alongside sleep. Their summary linked shiftwork and long shifts with poorer safety, but it does not show how analyses separated sleep duration from these accompanying working conditions.
The original publication
A Mixed-methods Systematic Review of Sleep Duration and Quality in Healthcare Workers: Impacts on Patient Safety and Quality of Care.
Fox J, McGrail M, Cha YJ et al.
Behav Sleep Med · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 40536282
- Record checked
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