The Negative Impacts of Shift Work on Nurses Essay

Nurse staffing refers to the ratio of nurses to patients in a particular unit. The current global nursing shortage is simply wide spread and dangerous lace of skilled nurses who are needed to care for individual patients and the population as a while. A study on the nursing shortage by Linda Aiken of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, fund that an estimated 20,000 people die each year, because they have checked into a hospital with overworked nurses. (The American Nurses Association, Inc., 2010).

In hospital, admitted patient were taken care by health worker twenty-four hours a day. There were three different shifts scheduled; morning, evening and night, and nurses works for eight hours a shift to provide patient care. In the hospital, each shift with different patients and different nurses are challenging part for continuity of care. During shift change essential information exchange and duties should be carried out in order to provide patient’s safety, quality and efficiency. Even though busy shift, nurse have vital role for providing high quality care and patient safety. Specially, shift change many patient described as a “ghost town”. Nurses are exchanging needed information and not spending much time with patients. The hospital

Change of shift is a busy time at the hospital. Nurses and techs who have cared for patients on the outgoing shift meet with those who will care for the patients for the next shift and give updates. This communication is often done as a meeting in a room or area that is away from the patients. Much thought has been given to implementing bedside nursing shift reports as a way to improve nursing satisfaction, reduce patient falls, and reduce medication errors. Although this method has been researched and reported in previous papers, those papers seemed lacking in data on sample sizes and rarely calculated statistical significance of the study results. The article used as a basis for this paper addressed these deficits seen in previous papers

The title of this study “Sleep Quality in Nurses: A Randomized Clinical Trial of Day and Night Shift Workers” appropriately portrays the information of the article. It describes the design of the study, a randomized trial, as well as the topic, sleep quality of nurses. Overall it gives a good picture of what the article includes.

This article was chosen because patient care and safety is said to be at the forefront of every healthcare’s overview; however, with some of the decisions made by each and every organization the above stated may not actually be the truth. The 12-hour nursing shift was introduced in the 1970’s during a massive shortage of nurses. Currently, there is roughly 75% of all hospitals using the 12-hour nurse shift. The argument for the hospitals is that with 12-hour shifts, they spend out less monies on overtime and it offers the nurse an opportunity to actually work less days a week, which offers more off-time. The hospitals further argue that with the 12-hour shifts, scheduling is easier and that the patients are in favor of having fewer nurse’s names to remember, thus feeling more comfortable with a familiar person. One point that was a real positive for the hospital is that with 12-hour shifts, there is less nurse to nurse patient handoffs; meaning the communication is of a higher quality, because the nurse spends more time with the patient thus likely being more thorough. (Rollins, 2015)

In recent years, there has been a distinct change in the shift-work of nurses working in the hospital setting. Typically a twenty-four hour day had been broken up into three shifts: a morning (0700-1500), evening (1500-2300), and night (2300-0700) shift. Those working these shifts generally worked four to five days per week. In the more recent trends, longer shifts, typically twelve hours, paired with fewer days of work per week have become more common. The International Council of Nurses declared in 2007 that the practice of shift work is necessary if nurses are to provide 24-hour care (Lin, 2014). There are many differing views on this

More specifically, it focused on those new to working night shifts and those who have worked that shift for several years. (Saksvik-Lehouillier, 2012, p.1136) The study went into detail about how each group could tolerate the shift work. Especially since working shifts can be related to many different negative health consequences. Some negative consequences could be anxiety, depression, insomnia and fatigue. In conclusion it explains how there is no difference between the groups toleration but rather that there are ways to improve the tolerance. Especially since there is some correlation between the negative effects and working a night shift. Some of the ways include, applying personality tests, couselling about the occupation and educating. (Saksvik-Lehouillier, 2012, p.1144)

A growing concern for busy nurses is the shift-to-shift report. A quality improvement group was formed in the hospital,

Today the big debate in nursing career is weather nurses working at hospitals in the United States should be working 8 or 12-hour long shifts. The reason this debate is still ongoing is because they are finding advantages to both of these shifts. Researchers are finding nurses who are working 12-hour shifts to be more fatigued. Whereas, when a nurse works 8-hours they are more involved and energetic through their shift. Even though 12 hour shifts in a way can be beneficial to the nurses they also need to think about the patient stratification. Studies have shown that nurses who work 8-hour shifts provide better patient satisfaction. If all hospitals across the United States mandated 12-hour shifts nurses will be more prepared and focused

Working rotating shifts can take a significant toll on the human body. The circadian rhythm – the biological clock, manages the patterns, or routines, throughout life. When working rotating shifts, our circadian rhythm has a more difficult time adjusting our sleep pattern. An individual may have a harder time falling asleep when needed and have an equally difficult time staying awake. As an individual acquires a sleep debt, they may experience anything from being easily irritated to suffering depression to difficulty remembering and focusing. Sleeping aids are available over-the-counter and prescription, but may worsen conditions or alter the individual’s state of mind – drowsiness, confusion, dizziness, etcetera. Most medications warn not

Maintaining good health and a wonderful marriage can be one of the toughest balancing acts an individual will have to deal with in their lives. Performing some type of shift work may play a huge role in the outcome and duration of a person’s life. There are many careers in a twenty-four hour economy that consist of working shifts other than the normal eight to five work day. For instance, careers in the medical profession, public safety profession, service industry and manufacturing; all require employees to work some kind of shift work. Therefore, be prepared to work some type of shift work when choosing a career in these professions. Unfortunately, workers who choose a career known to be associated with shift work may be risking their health and marriage. Many studies have been performed on individuals who work shift work and the results differ with each study. However, there is evidence that shows working other than a traditional workday, negatively affects an individual’s health and marriage.

BACKGROUND: shift work is a very common characteristic in healthcare and has been associated with work-related stress.

Nurses are one of the few professional groups who have to work in shift during their careers. Work shift implies either long-term night work or work involving rotation between day, evening, and night shifts. Work shifts affect a nurse’s health and performance of disruption of the circadian rhythm. This may result in sleep disturbances, fatigue, and impaired work performance and safety awarness15. In Australia, for example, there were 3.6 million medical consultations and 2.9 million prescriptions for back pain during 1993/199416; while in the United States, expenditures incurred by individuals with back pain reached 90.7 billion U.S. dollars in 199817. The direct costs of LBP in UK, USA, and Australia represent between 0.19 and 0.42 of Gross

A major part of providing good health care is employing the adequate number of trained and competent staff to give these services. The nursing manager at the Tarman Hospital has a 23-bed unit which requires nursing care over a regular 24 hours’ basis, which amounts to an estimated 75 shifts per week (Deber 2016). This hospital, however, is unique as it provides acute care and therefore the quality of staff has to be of a standard to able to provide the required expertise (Deber 2016). Currently, nurses are employed under three categories namely full time, part time and casual. The issue arises whenever scheduled nurses are unavailable which leaves gaps in coverage of the shift. Due to the hospital being unionized there are regulations which govern how staff can be used to cover these shifts. Any policy to solve this problem must be acceptable efficient and sustainable but also cost effective with the benefits far outweighing any consequences.

Health care is one of the area of public services which need continuous services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, traditionally, shift hours work schedule is the only options over the traditional Monday through Friday office hours to provide continuous services to the public. As generally known, there are options of working hours in applying the shift work hours. There are some institutions use 12-hours shift, while some others use 8-hours shift and some others have additional staff to work part-time with shift pattern outside of these two pattern.