Shift work in nursing: is it really a risk factor for nurses' health and patients' safety?

Sep 10, 2008Nursing economic$

Is shift work a health risk for nurses and a safety risk for patients?

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Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗

Abstract

Female shift workers report significantly more sleep disorders than male shift workers.

Shift work by itself is not associated with increased health problems or organizational outcomes in nurses.
Gender, age, and weight are more significant factors than shift work in determining nurses' well-being.
Non-adaptive nurses demonstrate similar effectiveness and safety levels as adaptive nurses regarding absenteeism and professional errors.
High rates of non-adapted sleep among nurses do not correlate with worse health outcomes or performance compared to adaptive and daytime colleagues.

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There is evidence in the scientific literature of the adverse physiological and psychological effects of shift work, including disruption to biological rhythm, sleep disorders, health problems, diminished performance at work, job dissatisfaction, and social isolation. In this study, the results of health problems and sleep disorders between female and male nurses, between daytime and shift nurses, and between sleep-adjusted and non-sleep-adjusted shift nurses were compared. Also the relationship between adjustment to shift work and organizational outcomes (errors and incidents and absenteeism from work) was analyzed. Gender, age, and weight were more significant factors than shift work in determining the well-being of nurses. Shift work by itself was not found to be a risk factor for nurses' health and organizational outcomes in this study. Moreover, nurses who were identified as being "non-adaptive" to shift work were found to work as effectively and safely as their adaptive colleagues in terms of absenteeism from work and involvement in professional errors and accidents. This research adds two additional findings to the field of shift work studies. The first finding is that female shift workers complain significantly more about sleep disorders than male shift workers. Second, although high rates of nurses whose sleep was not adapted to shift work were found, this did not have a more adverse impact on their health, absenteeism rates, or performance (reported errors and incidents), compared to their "adaptive" and "daytime" colleagues.

Shift work in nursing: is it really a risk factor for nurses' health and patients' safety?

Abstract

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Abstract

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