Nursing is a profession that is known for requiring staff to work nights, weekends, and holidays. This is a duty that most nurses are aware of prior to going into the field, however, they may not be fully aware of the impact these varied shifts have on personal health and performance. These types of fluctuating work hours are often referred to as shift work, which is defined by Berger and Hobbs (2006) as shifts taking place aside from the traditional daytime hours (p. 465). Typical hospital shifts outside of the day shift are usually classified as evening shift or night shift. Some nurses may work permanent days or nights; however, it is more common for nurses to find themselves rotating between the two shifts. Studies have shown that shift …show more content…
Nursing is a profession that is very demanding. Facilities nationwide primarily require their nursing staff to work 12 hour shifts. The benefit to 12 hour shifts is that nurses spend less days at the facility, however, it is very rare that the nurse is able to clock out from the shift at the 12-hour mark. By the time end of shift report is finished and the nurse gathers their things it is often close to a 13-hour shift, which makes the amount of time to sleep in between shifts minimal if the nurse is working consecutive days. Lack of sleep can lead to many unfavorable effects on the body. Some of these effects include reduced hunger, indigestion, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, breast cancer, mental disorders, diabetes, and increased body fat (Pryce, 2016). Therefore, it is crucial that nurses try to obtain an optimal amount of sleep in between shifts to prevent sleep related …show more content…
Each of my shifts for preceptorship were night shifts. This was an adjustment for me as I had never worked consecutive overnight shifts prior to this semester of nursing school. I adapted fairly well to this change after the second night of the experience. However, I found that my body adjusted too well to night shift and on the nights that I didn’t have a shift I wasn’t able to fall asleep until early morning hours. I also had a hard time resisting the urge to nap during the days that I had off. As a result, I felt that I spent less time on school work and had much less time for family and friends. I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience overnight shifts because I plan to work at Rapid City Regional Hospital and they require nursing staff to work rotating
“Sleep Quality in Nurses: A Randomized Clinical Trial of Day and Night Shift Workers” is a quantitative study by Nui, Chu Chung, Lin, Chang, and Chou published in the journal of Biological Research for Nursing (2012). The article aims to compare the amount of recovery time needed by nurses that work the night shift in relation to nurses that work the day shift. In order to determine if a study is eligible to use for developing evidence based practice it is important to critique research articles (Lobiondo-Wood & Haber, 2014) for their quality and applicability. This will determine if the study is relevant and can be applied to nursing practice. That is the purpose of this paper.
In the nursing profession, especially when working in a hospital, it is not uncommon to have 12-hour nursing shifts,
West, Ahern, Byrnes and Kwanten (2007) indicate that the new graduate nurses may have not worked full-time in the past; given that graduate nurses begin their career with a full-time job can lead to exhaustion. It was discovered that shift work leads to desynchronisation of physiologically determined circadian rhythms which has a major psychobiology effect and it is commonly perceived the effects of shift work contribute to graduate nurses attrition rate. The NGNs often have a high level of stress due to disturbed sleeping patterns, as they find to adaption to shift work or rotating work hours difficult. Eventually, it leads to feelings of lack of job satisfaction, exhaustion and spending of less time with their friends and family, which can eventually could lead to burnout (West et al., 2007).
In the past two decades, a lot of changes have been characterised in the healthcare working systems. One of these changes has been the assimilation of shift work systems and the flexibility in work schedules. The need for 24 hour care makes the healthcare professions to work with different shift systems such as 12 h, 8 h, 9 h or 10 hour shifts. However, the common shift work systems divide a 24-h day in two (12-h) or three (8-h) shifts. Nonetheless, this requires the staff to be adapted with the various forms of shift work schedules.
Capital punishment is a sentence that is given to someone that has committed a capital crime. This is a subject of great debate; some people agree and some do not. There are times when a crime is so heinous that the majority would seek capital punishment. Susan Gissendaner received this sentence for plotting to kill her husband, although her boyfriend actually killed her husband. Since being in prison, Susan has undergone a conversion and transformation. She is now a model prisoner. Due to Susan’s transformation, they are trying to have her sentence changed. Should Susan’s sentence be commuted to life in prison is the question being asked? This paper will answer the question by providing a moral judgment viewed by two non-consequentialist theories. The strengths and weaknesses of these positions will be assessed. Whether I agree or disagree will be answered and explained.
Moreover, most shifts run into each other with day shifts extending into the night and night shifts extending into the day. This means that their circadian rhythms are distorted. Extended shift work for nurses eventually lead to them finding it difficult to adapt to normal life or any activities outside work.
Within the recent years, hospitals and medical facilities have been experiencing nursing shortages that necessitate more nurses to be present to compensate for the care needed to be given. This requires nurses to be dealt with imperative extended work hours along with their normal shifts with no denial or excuse accepted. Working extra hours are accompanied with negative effects that have an impact on the nurse, coworkers, and patients. A major concern that occurs with overtime is that nurses become fatigued or burnout. Fatigue that is experienced is a result of sleep deprivation from working overtime that is associated with arduousness neurobehavioral functioning
Health care professionals are need all day long that’s why this in this profession people world rotating shifts. Those shifts are usually 6-14, 14-22 and 22-6 am. So we are seeing 3 different patterns in rotating shift which means that we are also seeing 3 rotating on sleeping patterns.
Patients in a hospital and/or healthcare facilities have to be cared for all day and all night, everyday of the week by nurses. The usual way to fulfill this need is to divide up the day into three 8-hour shifts. Different shifts have been put into place to help improve nurse satisfaction, decrease the nursing shortage and save the hospital money. The 24-hour day is made up of two 12-hour shifts; 12 hours in the day and 12 hours at night. There has been quite an ongoing debate over the years regarding this issue of nurses working over 8 hours in a single day. Many people, such as hospital nursing administrators, have reason to believe that working long hour shifts causes more errors in
A nurse’s typical day isn’t without stress; it is usually a lot of complex planning, critical thinking, time management, an abundance of communications with all departments of the hospital, and documenting events that have happened throughout the day on their entire patient assignment. “Nurses who are mandated following the completion of their regular shift are often ill-equipped to continue working. They have not planned for that situation with: proper advanced rest, arrangements for
To provide high-quality care for the patient it is essential for the nursing staff to have enough time for recovery from long hours of demanding work. Eight-hour shifts for hospital nurses have become a standard of the past. Nowadays, 12-hour shifts for three days a week have become typical in most hospitals as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) (Stimpfel, Sloane & Aiken, 2012). The length of the shifts and the working days; however, are often unpredictable due to increased demand for patient care and high census episodes. Nursing shortages, along with a weak economy, have left hospital nurses with no choice, then to work extended hours and overtime. Long hour shifts, as well as mandatory overtime, has become an increasing
Limited attention has been paid to the hours worked by nurses, or the effects of these hours on patient safety (Rogers, 2008). Even though most nurses favor 12- hour shifts and overtime, it is associated with difficulties staying awake during times of duty, reduced sleep times, and triple the risk of making an error (Rogers, 2008). The most significant risk of making an error occurred when nurses were scheduled to work 12.5 hours or more.
The first topic focused on in an article by Stimpfel et al. (2012) looked at the effect of longer shifts on nurses. Compared to the past, nurses are working twelve-hour shifts, instead of eight-hour shifts. The reason for these changes in shift lengths is for it to allow for nurses to have more flexibility in their schedules and to give them more time at home. This study revealed that the hours actually worked by nurses are unpredictable. Due to the fluctuations of patient needs and unanticipated staffing on the unit, leads to nurses having to work over their scheduled time (Stimpfel et al. 2012). This study also pointed out that there are no national policies for nurses that dictate the maximum number of hours a nurse can work. Nurses often end up working several hours over their shift because they feel forced into working those hours and thereby leading to burnout.
The term ‘Shift work’ is usually referred to uniformly divided allocations of the day in which individuals participate alternatively to provide twenty four hour coverage. A shift in sleep schedule conflicts with the body’s natural clock also known as the circadian rhythm into interpreting the time as ‘inappropriate’ and disrupts the homeostatic regulation cycle resulting in poor health outcomes. Fortunately, it is deemed possible to counter unfavourable effects of alternating insomnia and sleepiness through certain practices.
Fortunately, I had the opportunity this summer to work at the AT&T Foundry as a summer intern. AT&T is one of the largest telecommunication carriers worldwide and this was a very unique experience that I’m grateful to have been given. During this 10-week internship, I was able to work with some of the most talented engineers in the world as a fellow member of the Internet of Things Machine to Machine Department. I was mainly responsible for a wheel chair project, in which, I explored the various ways to detect the motor failure in a wheelchair.