Background: In today's modern world, longer working hours, shift work, and working at night have become major causes of the disruption of our natural circadian rhythms. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the type of shift work (rotating vs. fixed day), duty period (on-duty vs. off-duty), and working period within each shift (nighttime vs. daytime) on the circadian rhythm characteristics of nurses who provide direct patient care. Methods: This cross-sectional study used a purposive sampling method. Cosinor analysis was applied to analyze the actigraphy data of nurses providing direct patient care for seven consecutive days. The linear mixed effects model was then used to determine any variances between shift type, duty period, and working period within each shift for the nurses. Results: The mesor value did not differ according to nurses' shift type, duty period, and working period within each shift. The amplitude was statistically higher in on-duty nurses and in daytime working hours. The acrophase was significantly delayed in nighttime working hours. As well as nurses in rotating shift had experience. Conclusion Our findings revealed that the peak activity of nurses occurs significantly later at night while working and nurses working during nighttime hours may have a weaker or less distinct circadian rhythm. Thus, this study suggests that limits be placed on the number of rotating nighttime shifts for nurses.

PURPOSE: Food allergy (FA) affects the daily lives of children and parents in varying degrees. The Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire-Parent Form (FAQLQ-PF) is a valid and reliable instrument to assess the quality of life (QoL) of children from parents' perception. The aim of this study was to validate and determine the reliability of the Turkish FAQLQ-PF and to assess QoL in food-allergic children. METHODS: Children aged between 0 and 12 years and diagnosed with immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated FA for at least 1 month were enrolled. The English FAQLQ-PF was translated into Turkish according to the World Health Organization guidelines. The Food Allergy Independent Measure and the Turkish Child Health Questionnaire-Parent Form 50 were used for construct validity. RESULTS: One hundred and fifty-seven patients participated. The median age of patients and FA duration were 2.4 years (1.2–5.2 years, interquartile-ranges) and 2 years (0.8–5.1), respectively. Ninety-six (61.1%) patients had anaphylaxis. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient and intra-class correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was good for all age groups of children ( < 4, 4–6, and 7–12 years). Patients with either asthma or anaphylaxis had worse scores than others. Total scores of FAQLQ-PF tended to increase with age. Patients aged 7–12 had the highest total scores among all patients (2.2±0.1, 3.0±0.2, and 3.3±0.3 for < 4, 4–6, and 7–12 years, respectively, P < 0.001, P for trend < 0.001). Other factors causing the poor QoL were cow's milk allergy, sibling allergy, mother's age over 30 years, mother's high education level and lower number of persons in household. CONCLUSIONS: The Turkish FAQLQ-PF is a valid and reliable scale. FA-related QoL was significantly worse with age. Coexistent asthma, anaphylaxis regardless of its severity, cow's milk allergy, sibling allergy and the older and educated mothers seem to poorly affect QoL.
Anaphylaxis ; Asthma ; Child Health ; Child* ; Education ; Family Characteristics ; Food Hypersensitivity ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Immunoglobulin E ; Immunoglobulins ; Milk Hypersensitivity ; Mothers ; Parents ; Quality of Life* ; Reproducibility of Results ; Siblings ; World Health Organization