Night Shift Work

The negative impacts of shift work on workers’ health such as fatigue and sleep which are the main complain among the staff, job performance, psychosocial well-being, and job dissatisfaction have been

A considerable amount of literature has been published on the impact of working hours (8 vs. 12 hour shifts) on fatigue among the nurses. These studies revealed that twelve-hour shifts increase the risk of fatigue, reduce the level of alertness and performance, and therefore reduce the safety aspect compared to eight-hour shifts (Mitchell and Williamson, 1997; Dorrian et al., 2006; Dembe et al., 2009; Tasto et al., 1978). Mills et al. (1982) found that the risk of fatigues and performance errors are associated with the 12-hour shifts. Beside this, Jostone et al. (2002) revealed that nurses who are working for long hours

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.

It is problematic that healthcare professions work rotating shifts because this impedes on the ability of the human body to function properly. Rotating shifts means that everyday their shifts are at different times and different lengths of time. The human body needs to be in line with the environment and when the sun is up the body naturally is awake and alert and during night time the body goes dormant to sleep, this is called circadian rhythm. The body has a circadian clock and when this is disrupted this can lead to depression and anxiety. This can lead to exhaustion and irritation that can cause someone to make mistakes. This can also lead to sleep debt and cause insomnia that can affect the mental alertness. Sleep allows the body to fight

In the nursing profession, especially when working in a hospital, it is not uncommon to have 12-hour nursing shifts,

With growing concern about patient safety and satisfaction, a change in where shift report is given has been a cause of concern. Traditionally, change-of-shift report is done at the nurses’ station or away from patients. Numerous studies have been conducted on moving the change-of-shift report from the nurses’ station or hallway to the patient’s bedside. An analysis of bedside shift reporting has revealed the benefits of increased patient satisfaction and safety as well as several challenges of implementation of bedside shift reporting.

Does one ever think about the words “required” or “extended work shifts”? To countless nurses these terminologies or jargons mean mandatory overtime. In today’s healthcare, “required” overtime has sky rocketed, attributable to, the nursing shortages throughout the United States. Studies have revealed that working “extended work shifts or additional shifts” have a negative impact on both patient and nurse safety. The purpose of this paper is to inform and advocate for the Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act. This author will discuss the key points, provide a critique of empirical evidence, and demonstrate the importance and impact of this Act to the nursing profession.

Throughout the years there has been more attention directed towards healthcare worker fatigue. More specifically, fatigue associated among night-shift nurses. The Joint Commission has found that lack of sleep from night shifts has contributed to increased errors, leading to poor patient outcomes (Gardner, Dubeck, 2016).

New nurses often get the night shifts and it can be a very different change for them. If nurses were informed about these statistics, it could potentially reduce the risk of errors made because they know they need to get adequate hours of

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

Becky,I would like to share my experience with you, about night shift that I worked with Rasheeda on 9/10. Overall, I got impression that Rasheeda is a knowledgeable nurse with good clinical skills, who knows night shift routine. Unfortunately, I noticed that Rasheeda does not have strong bedside manners and good time management skills. I want to share with you a few specific examples: 1)

“38% higher risk of dying from heart disease than nurses who only worked during the

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

My husband is an I.T. and worked night and rotated shifts for 12 years. Our quality of life improved significantly since last year when he started to work day hours only. I can say that his previous schedule affected not only his sleep and health but also interfered on our routine as a family, since that I also had to work and take care of our children on my own and making sure that he could rest enough for another night of work. After the change his is having time to take better care of his health, exercising, sleeping and eating better. We have more time to spend together as a family and it reflects directly on our quality of life.

It is my opinion that shift work is another potential hazard to me as an employee in the Healthcare Industry. It is my belief that employees on nightshift work or those working irregular hours may be more susceptible to errors and accidents, mainly due to fatigue or