Sleep quality and burnout: A Singapore study

Introduction: Improved sleep hygiene is postulated to be protective against burnout. Previous studies assessing a potential association between poor sleep quality and burnout showed incongruent results.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between sleep quality and burnout.

Design: Setting and Participants: A survey was conducted in a large health care cluster in Singapore and included health care staff from different professions (N = 4777). The Maslach Burnout Inventory - Human Services Survey was used to measure burnout across 3 sub-scales: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment, while the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to gauge the participants' sleep quality. Multi-variable general linear model ANOVA was used for correlation analysis.

Results: There is a strong correlation between sleep quality and all 3 burnout sub-scales. PSQI is associated with Emotional Exhaustion (F value = 90.65, P-value <.0001), Depersonalization (F value = 49.46, P-value <.0001) and Personal Accomplishment (F value = 12.29, P-value <.0001). PSQI shows a significant linear upward trend with Emotional Exhaustion (linear contrast = 957.06, P-value <.0001) and with Depersonalization (linear contrast = 521.92, P-value <.0001). With Personal Accomplishment, PSQI shows a significant linear downward trend (linear contrast = 123.61, P-value <.0001).

Conclusion: Poor sleep quality is progressively and linearly associated with burnout and its 3 sub-scales. Future studies that evaluate interventions which improve sleep quality among health care workers may be useful in reducing burnout and improving patient care.