A Brief Note On Nurses And Nurses ' Rights And Lobbies On Healthcare Related Matters

12-Hour shifts have constantly been an argument in the field of nursing. This topic interests me because there is constant jitter around this topic, to whether if it’s safe, or not. This can be taken into view from the patients view and also the nurses. Nurses should not be allowed to work 12-hour shifts because, the physical and emotional impact on their bodies is too debilitating, and the length of the shifts could be a potentially hazard to the patients.

For some nurses, mandatory overtime can be an advantage due to financial instability but mostly mandatory overtime can cause fatigue, burnout, injuries, errors, inadequate sleep and deficits in performance. According to research working long hours which consists more than 40 hours a week or over 12 hours a day leads to an increased medication errors and patient mortality. The probability of making medication errors increases tremendously when nurses work longer than 12.5 hours a day. During surveys regarding reasons of overtime, 60 % of nurses stated that overtime was obligatory as part of their job, 29 % of nurses stated that they volunteered and 41% of nurses stated that they were “on call hours” (Bae, 2012)

Mandatory overtime in the field of nursing is described as forced overtime to maintain an adequate amount of staff present to meet the needs of the hospital. With a normal work schedule, a nurse usually works 12-hour shifts, usually three times a week. With the obligatory hours that are extended with overtime due to the continuation of nursing shortages, a nurse’s shift can be continued ranging from 12 to 16 hours, with very short notice. This mandatory action is related to putting not only nurses, but also patient’s health at risk. The advantages that accompany mandatory overtime are overshadowed by the disadvantages that surpass the benefits of working extended hours, therefore, mandatory overtime should not be allowed in the nursing work place.

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.

(Senteniel) Additional studies show risk of errors and close calls were related to longer shift length and were associated with decreased attentiveness. Nurses also suffer higher rates of occupational injury when working shifts more than 12 hours. (Joint Commision, 20111) The ANA acknowledges the relationship between working long hours and increased risk for sleep disturbances, injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, gastrointestinal problems, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adverse reproductive outcomes. (NANN, 2012) In addition to clinical outcomes, there is an association between nurses who worked 13 or more hours in the hospital and lack of communication with patients regarding pain control. Burnout is common among nurses working long shifts and they are more than likely to leave their job within the first year. Shifts scheduled for 12 hours often exceed that timeframe, as many as 40% of the work shifts logged for their study exceeded 12 hours. (Martin, 2012) There are many reasons for fatigue, but shift length is the one that is most obvious and easy to fix. It is no wonder for nurse fatigue when 12 hour shifts are the norm. Twelve hour shifts are standard practice even though the Institute of Medicine recommends limiting them. At a recent nursing management congress Cole Edmonson stated that 12 hour shifts may cause more problems than they solve. While research is aiding us comprehend the dangers nurse fatigue brings to patients and nurses themselves, he called 12 hour shifts “a dead idea whose time has passed”. Eliminating 12 hour shifts is obvious if the fact is acknowledged that nurse fatigue is a serious problem. (Hendren,

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

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

Patient safety is among one of the top priorities associated with nursing as a profession. One of the common factors that contribute to fatigue is sleep (Rogers, 2008). According to Rogers (2008), it is shown that nurses have the inability to be efficiently productive with inadequate sleeping habits. This ultimately results in an inability to provide safe, competent care, as nurses are over worked, thus triples the chance of making an error (Rogers, 2008). Greater chances of making errors are most likely to occur when a nurse works past 8.5 hours (Rogers, Hwang, Scott, Aiken, & Dinges, 2004).

I chose this topic because, I want to go into the medical field and fatigue in nursing is one of the biggest problems in this field. This problem is affecting both the nurses and patients. The nurses aren't able to stay on task, which is putting the patient's health at risk. “According to a study by Australian researchers, there is a 3.4% chance of an error occurring when nurses obtain six hours or less of sleep during

Nurses have many responsibilities and take on various roles. Besides playing the role of a caregiver, nurses are also educators and are responsible for their patients’ knowledge of their health and medications. Nurses are also advocates that act upon the patient’s wishes and protect their rights. The workload that nurses are responsible for leave nurses more susceptible to experiencing burnout. In addition, short-staffing can also put more work to the already overwhelming workload that nurses have. Lastly, long shifts may also contribute to this burnout syndrome that nurses suffer from. More nurses than ever are switching from eight-hour shifts to twelve-hour shifts as this schedule shortens their work weeks (Stimpfel, Aiken & Sloane, 2012). However, there is limited research on long shifts and its impact on the well being of nurses and the quality of care provided. The purpose of this paper is to compare eight-hour shifts and twelve-hour shifts and their impact on nurse burnout. For nurses working in the hospital settings, does working eight-hour shifts compared to twelve-hour shifts result in less

When nurses work for long hours with no rest, they are prone to fatigue thus leading to poor performance and an increase in errors. These effects are risky to the patients, nurses, and the health care centers. According to research, heavy workload on nurses

However, other studies have found that nurses’ healthiness is not undesirably affected by the 12 h shift (Dwyer et al., 2007; Jennings and Rademaker, 1987; Kaliterna and Prizmic, 1998), and some have established that it can essentially have affirmative well-being benefits, comprising a substantial reduction in individual symptomatology in the areas of overall health, cardiovascular associated illnesses, anxiety and frustration (Eaton and Gottselig, 1980), reduced emotional exhaustion (Stone et al., 2006; van Servellen and Leake, 1994) and consumption more healthily (Freer and Murphy-Black, 1995). One study found that nurses employed 12 h shifts involvement suggestively less compassion tiredness than those working for 8 h (Yoder, 2010). A smaller quantity of studies have reconnoitered the connection among work hours and the probability of incident or injury to nurses but these too have self-contradictory results. One study found that the danger of ‘drowsy driving’ doubled over and the risk of actuality involved in a motor vehicle crash or near motor vehicle crash nearly doubled when driving followed shifts exceeding 12 and a half hours in period (Scott et al., 2007). However, additional study found no changes stated in trouble driving home pre and post carrying out of 12 h shifts (Mills et al., 1983). Trinkoff et al. (2006a) found that employed 13 h or lengthier was considerably related with prevalence of neck, shoulder and back injury/complaint, even though Lipscomb et al.

For the month of July, the American Nurse Association is emphasizing on sleep hygiene for safety reasons. Addition to their intense 12 hour shifts; some nurses are sacrificing their breaks and lunchtime to finish charting if they want to end their shift on time. We often neglect nurses’ health, which can ultimately cause undesirable outcomes for both patient and nurses in the long run. Delivering the best care for the patients is a constant goal for nurses, yet they struggle to find the time to balance healthy schedules. Eventually exhaustion will occur causing nurses to be fatigue and unable to carry out their duty at their optimum level.

They found that some nurses preferred to sleep during the day and do more activities during the day and had a difficult time functioning at night. These were the people that could not adapt easily during the shift work. Moreover, there were nurses who could function better during the night and be more alert and have their social activities during the night and slept during the day these nurses adapted very easily to shift work and preferred to work nights. The study found that nurses who who worked the shift work for more than fifteen years and could not adapt to shift work had a higher rate for divorce, increased rate for colorectal cancer, social isolation and substance

The results showed that “an increase in hours lead to nurses leaving their jobs due to a nursing shortage which caused exhaustion and patient dissatisfaction” (p.2504). The study also found that patient outcomes was affected by length of shifts worked by nurses. It noted that, “having higher percentage of nurses working shorter shifts decreased patient dissatisfaction”. (p2505). Over all, the study” found that most nurses were satisfied with their schedule and most nurses worked at least twelve hour shifts. However, most of those nurses working 12-13 hour shifts were more likely to leave the job, than nurses who work shorter shifts” (Brown & Trinkoff, 2010, p.2506). This apparent contradiction is because the ideal of 3-day work week instead of a five is more appealing to nurses. Interestingly, after reading the article by Garrett (2008) the same issues existed. The strain of working long hours have negative nurse outcomes. This calls on management to incorporate this scenario in decision making about scheduling. This will be a step in the right direction by acknowledging nurses working long hours could influence patient