Association of Long Duty Hours and Unhealthy Dietary Habits among Nurses at Private and Public Sector in Karachi, Pakistan

OBJECTIVE: To determine the associations between long duty hours and unhealthy dietary habitsamong nurses at private and public sector in Karachi, Pakistan METHODOLOGY: In this cross-sectional analytical design 300 nurses were randomly selected from privateandpublichospitalsbetweenmonthsof Octoberto December2017.Thedata wascollectedthrough structuredquestionnairedevelopedby Aryee PA 2013 containing two portions. The first part asks aboutthe demographic data including age, sex, marital status and ethnicity, whereas, the second part asksabout the anthropometry, job schedule, physical activity and dietary habits of the respondents. RESULTS: The mean age of 300 study subjects was 30.78±8.47 years. Among them 61% nurses wereworking as long duty hours. Nurses working in private sectors are more involved in the long duty hours rather than nurses working in public sectors. Body Mass Index (BMI) of nurses was significantly relevantwith the long duty hours (P-value <0.05). The mean BMI of nurses with long duty hours wereBMI=25.78±7.35. Long duty hours were associated with skipping meal through Mann Whitney U test,which was significant with P-value ˂ 0.05. BMI and age of participants was negatively correlated withduty hours i.e. -0.116 & -0.239 respectively. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, long duty hours are associated with the unhealthy dietary habits of thenurses. The study recommended that nurses must reflect on their dietary habits to stay healthy and prevent from non-communicable diseases. Nurse Managers should work efficiently so workload ofnurses could minimize and could reduce their duty hours.