Is Working Shift Work Really Harmful?

The impact of rotating shift work on police officers in terms of fatigue, increased stress, and other long term medical problems cannot be overstated. In 2011, an in-depth research project, “Sleep disorders, health, and safety in police officers” (JAMA, 2011), was conducted involving a group of North American police officers in regards to the sleep disorders and the health and safety of the officers participating. The study involved 4,957 officers that worked rotating shifts over a period of approximately two years. The findings were startling and revealed that 3,930 officers (79.3%) were overweight or obese. Another 40.7% tested positive for at least one (1) sleep disorder and the majority of those that tested positive for a disorder

First, baseline data were collected on nurse perceptions about the shift report process and patient perceptions about nursing care were. The authors adopted the ‘Patient Views on Nursing Care’ patient survey tool (Larrabee et al. 1995) to perform the survey. Then same data were collected and analyzed three months and 13 months after the new approach was implemented. The data analysis approach included analysis of variance(ANOVA) to compare data collected during the baseline survey and data collected after the new approach was implemented.

Work is not something anyone look forward to stress, back pains, and talking to people. Americans work an average nine to five shift. Five

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).

Work-life balance has been a popular topic for employees across all age and occupations for years, representing a rising concern of contemporary human resource management and labor policies. This topic has attracted the attention from the millennium generation, who is stepping into the market and beginning to grow a career. Therefore considering the increasing demand, well-designed workforce planning with diverse scheduling options offered to employees appears to be extra credits for most companies. This research paper aims to communicate the positive effects of four-day workweek, and providing support for why employers should adopt this schedule for employees and themselves through 1) introducing background and history of four-day workweek as a work schedule option and 2) demonstrating benefits of four-day workweek from both employer and employees’ perspectives.

The theme of overemployment is a current problem in the United States. Americans are overworked. Workload has increased and society has experienced a loss of leisure. Overemployment and overworked can be defined as negative effects that occur when individuals are required to work more hours than they want to work. “Personal perceptions of workload are critical, as individuals have diverse reactions to the number of hours worked depending on their needs, lifestyle, expectations, and experiences. Individuals have different tolerances for demands and stress. While many, including professionals

Introduction The term 12 hour shift is used to refer to a two shift system associated with an extended working day, as supposed to an eight hour workshift. Twelve-hour shifts have become the normality and standard shift option for nursing over recent years across the United States (Harris, Sims, Parr, &

The Burning Question: Does Night Shift Increase Patient Care Errors? A nurse’s role is to advocate for the patient, provide care to them and their families, to do no harm, to promote healthcare and to alleviate suffering (AMA, 2015). With this being said, does working the night shift increase patient care errors? The human body is regulated by the circadian rhythms that tell the body when to sleep and wake, so does this altered sleep pattern have a correlation with patient care errors? When nurses work the night shift, this natural rhythm is disrupted and can impact well-being, judgement and decision making as well as the overall health of the nurse. In the articles presented, there are several thoughts on whether or not the shift change causes decrease judgement, response time and decision making. Are nurses truly impacted by night shift or are there other variable that impact the nurse and their physical and emotional health. Are there more patient care errors on the night shift than any other shift? There are several journal articles that research this very question using Evidence-based practice and PICO.

Nurses are placed in a position to make difficult decisions during the night shift when there are not enough staff members to handle patients that suffer from sundowners due to acuity differences from day shift to night shift. Many sundowner patients become agitated and even aggressive during the night shift, which day shift nurses do not experience when they assign patient acuity (Cipriani et al., 2015). During the night shift, nurses are given fewer, if any, certified nursing assistant (CNA) to assist in the workload of staffing. This limitation places nurses in the position of decreasing quality nursing care in patient safety.

The first article Worker Fatigue, found in the Professional Safety Journal, went into detail on the effects of fatigue on employees’ work performance. Fatigue can be described as lassitude or exhaustion of mental and physical strength resulting from bodily labor or mental exertion (Hallowell, 2010). Nowadays, fatigue is a common concern for workers in various occupations all around the world. Highway construction is an occupation where fatigue is definitely found among workers. Construction strategies that minimize congestion and disruption to local communities are becoming more common. Extended work shifts, nighttime work and work zones adjacent to active roadways are considered to be rapid renewal strategies. Rapid renewal means completing highway projects quickly with minimal disruption to communities(Hallowell, 2010). Highway construction work requires a great deal of intense focus and physical exertion, the use of heavy mobile equipment and repetitive tasks. Traditionally, construction work was done during the day, but now new strategies such as nighttime work, continuous work and extended shifts have been put into play. Although these strategies enhance schedule performance, it also increases fatigue among workers. According to Hallowell, there are two types of fatigue: cognitive and localized

There is no evidence of tampering with the results and it is clear that the researcher tried to minimize bias while analyzing the data as they had two independent researchers analyze the open text. The study did not identify any other study that produced similar findings about the manager’s perceptions. It did however identify several studies that have found the same barriers to nap at work. It also commented on several studies that explored one of the manager’s main concern of sleep inertia. The study identified that there are several risks and benefits to implementing this idea into practice. The risks include sleep inertia or feeling groggy after waking up, not allowing others who don’t want to sleep on break to talk during the break and staffing shortages on the floor while some are off napping. The benefits include less medication errors, physiological benefits for the nurses and safety when driving home after the night shift. As identified in the study, the findings may not be feasible as there are a lot of mixed feeling about naps. Therefore, manager’s may not advocate one way or the other and just accept things as they are. They also identified that even if managers were in favour of naps, there is still a lot of work needed to done so that naps can occur. Finally, the study could be replicated in another setting if the questions of the survey were revealed. This would ensure that the same tool was being used. Then the survey could

I am bored. Today,my manager talks to me that in the next time,maybe i have to work shift. I like work as a QA lab, this make me more better. I will have experience. Why do i work shift?i spent time so much for the work. i waited long time. i sacrificed. i hate the company. it made me so bad. I think when i comeback hometown and work at the company i will better. But not...

Working Hours and Their Effect on Patient Safety and Wellbeing It is estimated that more than 1.3 million medical errors occur in the United States every year. Around 48,000 of these errors results in the patient’s death. There are quite a number of reason why healthcare errors occur. The most prevalent reason is the working hours for healthcare practitioners. A majority of healthcare practitioners are required to work for long hours due to a shortage of healthcare staffs in most healthcare facilities. One of the ways healthcare facilities have tried to meet the shortage of healthcare practitioners is by making them work for more hours during their work shifts. The normal working hours for a healthcare practitioner is supposed to be an average

The fatigue associated with working the night shift was brought into the spotlight after an aircraft incident that occurred on June 10, 1990. British Airways flight 5390 had just departed from Birmingham International Airport when the aircraft experienced a rapid pressure loss due to the pilot’s windshield blowing out

In this report, we determine the scheduling issues of shifts faced by the CLT members, analyzing them and making recommendations to the management.