Nurse Shiftwork Effects
Shiftwork: Its Detrimental Effects
Every new nurse graduate looks forward to the day where they graduate and only have to work three 12 hour shifts a week. Most graduates are unaware of shiftwork and the detrimental effects it can have on their health. Shiftwork means working any shifts that fall outside of the norm nine to five schedule. In terms of the healthcare sector, it has two main categories of shift durations that allows for continuous care of patients. These two systems can further be broken down into two twelve hour shifts, or three eight hour shifts. Many believe that by working the 12-hour shifts they will have greater flexibility in their schedules, since they will essentially have four days off. These advantages do not off put …show more content…
the disadvantages of shift work. Long working hours are associated with higher rates of chronic fatigue, which in turn can increase the number of nursing errors. Longer shifts can also be detrimental to a nurse’s health. This topic is being explored in greater detail to bring to light the negative effects of shiftwork and how these things can affect nurse’s overtime.
Review of Literature Increased level of fatigue. Shiftwork not only has an impact on acute fatigue, but it also effects chronic fatigue and inter-shift recovery of nurses. Inter-shift recovery being defined as the amount of fatigue recovery between shifts. Study by Chen et al (2013) found that nurses reported a “moderate to high level” of acute fatigue when working a 12 hour shift.
Fatigue is not only a problem over shorter periods of time but also affects the nurse long term unless given the opportunity to recover. This loss of sleep builds up over time and adds to a person’s sleep debt. The person must then compensate for this loss of sleep. For instance if a person loses three hours a night for the next three shifts then the person has nine hours of sleep debt, the body will then try to compensate for this loss on the person’s next night off. However, nurses do not usually allow their bodies to compensate for this sleep debt because they do not want to spend their day off sleeping. Especially if they compensate their days off for increased family time, and will try to alter their sleeping schedule to match that of everyone else’s in the home. Which then alters with their inter-shift recovery period and can lead to chronic fatigue.
Chronic fatigue builds up over time due to the inability of the nurse to get long periods of uninterrupted sleep, which also has to do with an imbalance in their circadian rhythm.
Nurses should understand the circadian rhythm and the methods to counteract its negative effects of working when their body thinks it should be sleeping. The internal pattern of the circadian rhythm is regulated by dark and light with most people programmed to sleep during the hours it is dark outside. The circadian rhythm has an effect on many other things in the body such as temperature, heartrate, and hormone regulation. The circadian rhythm also has an effect on the nurses working conditions and their cognitive function. Lack of sleep can attribute to a slower reaction time, resulting in more on the job injuries or clinical errors. These errors include drug administration errors, incorrect operation of medical equipment, and needle stick injuries. (cite) These errors in return can be minuscule or they can life threatening. The buildup of these errors over time could cost the nurse ultimately their …show more content…
license.
Effects on physical and mental health. Nurses who regularly work long hours may see a negative impact on their health. Nurses often find it difficult to maintain a regular exercise schedule due to their ever changing schedule. It may also be hard to maintain a well-balanced diet, due to the lack of time they have to meal prep in between shifts. Impact on family and social life. Even though having greater flexibility in the shiftwork schedule this does not correlate with having an increased satisfaction in family and social life. There is often a lack of synchrony between the shiftwork schedule and the families’ daily routine. This is especially true for those who work night shifts and have spouses that work the normal nine to five schedule or who have small children at all. … It is often forgotten that healthcare industries are open 365 days a year, until one breaks a bone and needs to seek medical treatment at the hospital. Nurses and other healthcare personal are required to work most of the major holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, one or both of them each year. Missing out on the holidays can lead to feelings of resentfulness and sadness (Clendon & Walker, 2013).
Even though shiftwork does not have as great as an impact on social life, it still affects it to an extent. With having such an erratic schedule, many times the nurse will have to miss out on social events or cannot make plans far out into the future. This can have a negative impact on friendships. Friends may not understand your work schedule and may stop sending invites thinking you will say no anyways. This can start leading to feelings of social isolation.
Implications for Professional Nursing Practice
• Adequately discuss the responsibility of the nursing profession in relation to selected topic.
The nursing profession as a whole as the responsibility to make sure that nurses schedules are set in a way that is safe for them and safe for their practices.
• How should nursing (as a whole, not necessarily one particular institution) relate, address, or improve in this area of practice? For instance: if you are writing about transitioning new nurses into clinical practice, should there be a national policy instituted to mandate a minimum amount of orientation or maximum patient load for a specified period of time? Should there be statewide, regional, or national conferences to train preceptors? There are many ideas whereby you use critical thinking to write this section.
Nurse managers should place emphasis on ensuring that the scheduling sequence takes into account circadian rhythms (Clendon & Walker, 2013). Implications for Individual Professional Practice
Individual nurses have the power to decide whether shiftwork would be suitable to them. Nurses have the responsibility of doing the research and figuring out how the shiftwork schedule can ultimately affect them. The individual nurse should also know their body, and stay true to it. Some people value sleep more than others, and know that they will not be able to stay fully cognitive and alert if they do not get a proper amount of sleep before returning to work. Nurses should also recognize what impact shiftwork can have on their individual professional practice and what goals they should achieve in order to improve this practice.
Despite all the negatives that shiftwork has attributed to it, it also has many positives too. Longer shifts promise less patient turnover. Less handoffs between nurses means less reports and lower chances for miscommunication and possible errors. This also enhances the patient-nurse relationship. Nurses get to spend more time with their patients and have more time to provide direct care to their patients and further enhance therapeutic technique (Aveyard, 2016). Shiftwork also allows nurses pursuing higher education the option to work while going to school. It allows more nurses the time and the freedom to take classes, since classes are usually a set schedule during the week. It also provides room for more financial gains. In most healthcare facilities there is an opportunity to get night time and weekend differential. The nurse also has the time to work overtime while still having two or three days off.
However, if a nurse decides that shiftwork is not something they think they would ever be able to get adjusted too then they might have some troubling choices ahead. A nurse making the decision to go to a more set schedule may ultimately be making a choice that will cost them their passions. A nurse who is passionate about a specialty that is only unique to the hospital setting, will have a big decision to make professionally. For example, an individual nurse who is passionate about emergency medicine and wants to work in the emergency department will be less than likely to find a healthcare organization that does not follow a shiftwork schedule. However, there are many different precautions the nurse can take in order to reduce the negative effects of shiftwork.
New nurses entering the field should not be apprehensive when deciding to work a shiftwork schedule.
Nurses can set numerous goals that counteract the detrimental effects of shiftwork that ultimately can improve their professional nursing practice. Nurses should bond with co-staff. Bonding with staff will help increase the likelihood of the shift running more smoothly. This increased cohesion at work may also protect employees against negative health outcomes (Treuer et al, 2014). Shiftwork shift sequencing can be broken down into three categories: clockwise rotation, counter clockwise rotation, and rapid rotation. Nurses should seek to work the clockwise rotation, where the rotation sequence is based off the circadian cycle (Lin et al¸ 2012). This well help to promote sleep and decrease acute fatigue. Nurses should also make it a goal to understand their circadian rhythm clock. Nurses who understand this can learn to counteract the effects of daylight whenever returning home after working a night shift. Nurses should wear dark sunglasses when driving home in the morning and should cover the blinds in their bedroom with dark
curtains.
Every new nurse graduate looks forward to the day where they graduate and only have to work three 12 hour shifts a week. Most graduates are unaware of shiftwork and the detrimental effects it can have on their health. Shiftwork means working any shifts that fall outside of the norm nine to five schedule. In terms of the healthcare sector, it has two main categories of shift durations that allows for continuous care of patients. These two systems can further be broken down into two twelve hour shifts, or three eight hour shifts. Many believe that by working the 12-hour shifts they will have greater flexibility in their schedules, since they will essentially have four days off. These advantages do not off put …show more content…
the disadvantages of shift work. Long working hours are associated with higher rates of chronic fatigue, which in turn can increase the number of nursing errors. Longer shifts can also be detrimental to a nurse’s health. This topic is being explored in greater detail to bring to light the negative effects of shiftwork and how these things can affect nurse’s overtime.
Review of Literature Increased level of fatigue. Shiftwork not only has an impact on acute fatigue, but it also effects chronic fatigue and inter-shift recovery of nurses. Inter-shift recovery being defined as the amount of fatigue recovery between shifts. Study by Chen et al (2013) found that nurses reported a “moderate to high level” of acute fatigue when working a 12 hour shift.
Fatigue is not only a problem over shorter periods of time but also affects the nurse long term unless given the opportunity to recover. This loss of sleep builds up over time and adds to a person’s sleep debt. The person must then compensate for this loss of sleep. For instance if a person loses three hours a night for the next three shifts then the person has nine hours of sleep debt, the body will then try to compensate for this loss on the person’s next night off. However, nurses do not usually allow their bodies to compensate for this sleep debt because they do not want to spend their day off sleeping. Especially if they compensate their days off for increased family time, and will try to alter their sleeping schedule to match that of everyone else’s in the home. Which then alters with their inter-shift recovery period and can lead to chronic fatigue.
Chronic fatigue builds up over time due to the inability of the nurse to get long periods of uninterrupted sleep, which also has to do with an imbalance in their circadian rhythm.
Nurses should understand the circadian rhythm and the methods to counteract its negative effects of working when their body thinks it should be sleeping. The internal pattern of the circadian rhythm is regulated by dark and light with most people programmed to sleep during the hours it is dark outside. The circadian rhythm has an effect on many other things in the body such as temperature, heartrate, and hormone regulation. The circadian rhythm also has an effect on the nurses working conditions and their cognitive function. Lack of sleep can attribute to a slower reaction time, resulting in more on the job injuries or clinical errors. These errors include drug administration errors, incorrect operation of medical equipment, and needle stick injuries. (cite) These errors in return can be minuscule or they can life threatening. The buildup of these errors over time could cost the nurse ultimately their …show more content…
license.
Effects on physical and mental health. Nurses who regularly work long hours may see a negative impact on their health. Nurses often find it difficult to maintain a regular exercise schedule due to their ever changing schedule. It may also be hard to maintain a well-balanced diet, due to the lack of time they have to meal prep in between shifts. Impact on family and social life. Even though having greater flexibility in the shiftwork schedule this does not correlate with having an increased satisfaction in family and social life. There is often a lack of synchrony between the shiftwork schedule and the families’ daily routine. This is especially true for those who work night shifts and have spouses that work the normal nine to five schedule or who have small children at all. … It is often forgotten that healthcare industries are open 365 days a year, until one breaks a bone and needs to seek medical treatment at the hospital. Nurses and other healthcare personal are required to work most of the major holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, one or both of them each year. Missing out on the holidays can lead to feelings of resentfulness and sadness (Clendon & Walker, 2013).
Even though shiftwork does not have as great as an impact on social life, it still affects it to an extent. With having such an erratic schedule, many times the nurse will have to miss out on social events or cannot make plans far out into the future. This can have a negative impact on friendships. Friends may not understand your work schedule and may stop sending invites thinking you will say no anyways. This can start leading to feelings of social isolation.
Implications for Professional Nursing Practice
• Adequately discuss the responsibility of the nursing profession in relation to selected topic.
The nursing profession as a whole as the responsibility to make sure that nurses schedules are set in a way that is safe for them and safe for their practices.
• How should nursing (as a whole, not necessarily one particular institution) relate, address, or improve in this area of practice? For instance: if you are writing about transitioning new nurses into clinical practice, should there be a national policy instituted to mandate a minimum amount of orientation or maximum patient load for a specified period of time? Should there be statewide, regional, or national conferences to train preceptors? There are many ideas whereby you use critical thinking to write this section.
Nurse managers should place emphasis on ensuring that the scheduling sequence takes into account circadian rhythms (Clendon & Walker, 2013). Implications for Individual Professional Practice
Individual nurses have the power to decide whether shiftwork would be suitable to them. Nurses have the responsibility of doing the research and figuring out how the shiftwork schedule can ultimately affect them. The individual nurse should also know their body, and stay true to it. Some people value sleep more than others, and know that they will not be able to stay fully cognitive and alert if they do not get a proper amount of sleep before returning to work. Nurses should also recognize what impact shiftwork can have on their individual professional practice and what goals they should achieve in order to improve this practice.
Despite all the negatives that shiftwork has attributed to it, it also has many positives too. Longer shifts promise less patient turnover. Less handoffs between nurses means less reports and lower chances for miscommunication and possible errors. This also enhances the patient-nurse relationship. Nurses get to spend more time with their patients and have more time to provide direct care to their patients and further enhance therapeutic technique (Aveyard, 2016). Shiftwork also allows nurses pursuing higher education the option to work while going to school. It allows more nurses the time and the freedom to take classes, since classes are usually a set schedule during the week. It also provides room for more financial gains. In most healthcare facilities there is an opportunity to get night time and weekend differential. The nurse also has the time to work overtime while still having two or three days off.
However, if a nurse decides that shiftwork is not something they think they would ever be able to get adjusted too then they might have some troubling choices ahead. A nurse making the decision to go to a more set schedule may ultimately be making a choice that will cost them their passions. A nurse who is passionate about a specialty that is only unique to the hospital setting, will have a big decision to make professionally. For example, an individual nurse who is passionate about emergency medicine and wants to work in the emergency department will be less than likely to find a healthcare organization that does not follow a shiftwork schedule. However, there are many different precautions the nurse can take in order to reduce the negative effects of shiftwork.
New nurses entering the field should not be apprehensive when deciding to work a shiftwork schedule.
Nurses can set numerous goals that counteract the detrimental effects of shiftwork that ultimately can improve their professional nursing practice. Nurses should bond with co-staff. Bonding with staff will help increase the likelihood of the shift running more smoothly. This increased cohesion at work may also protect employees against negative health outcomes (Treuer et al, 2014). Shiftwork shift sequencing can be broken down into three categories: clockwise rotation, counter clockwise rotation, and rapid rotation. Nurses should seek to work the clockwise rotation, where the rotation sequence is based off the circadian cycle (Lin et al¸ 2012). This well help to promote sleep and decrease acute fatigue. Nurses should also make it a goal to understand their circadian rhythm clock. Nurses who understand this can learn to counteract the effects of daylight whenever returning home after working a night shift. Nurses should wear dark sunglasses when driving home in the morning and should cover the blinds in their bedroom with dark
curtains.