The impact of sleep quality on mental health in working Australians: A quasi-experimental approach

Work conditions and major life events can impact individual sleep quality, and subsequently impact mental health. This study aims to investigate effect of sleep quality on mental health of working Australians. We pioneer to employ a novel method in public health studies, a quasi-experimental (Instrumental Variable) approach, which can address reciprocal relationships between sleep and mental health in order to estimate causal effect of sleep quality on mental health on a sample of 14,480 working Australians aged 25-64 from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey waves 2013 and 2017. We find that work conditions such as high job demand, long workhours, long unpaid workhours, shift work, and major life events adversely affect sleep quality, and hence the changes in sleep quality strongly affect mental health of working Australians. The finding underscores the need for policies that should address current employment conditions by reducing long workhours, high work demand, irregular work shifts, and providing better support including emotional support programs, and creating worker-friendly settings to mitigate poor sleep quality in the Australian workforce. Doing so would help improve workers’ sleep quality, and ultimately mental health and overall health outcomes.