Nurse Fatigue Research Papers

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).

Nurses spend most of their time taking care of their patients that they forget to be mindful of their own wellbeing. It is very important for nurses to take care of themselves because it is reflected through the care they provide to their patients. Sleep deprivation can increase the chances of a nurse miscalculating a dosage, which can be fatal to a patient’s life or injure themselves by forgetting proper body mechanics. Not having enough sleep and overworking themselves can be the cause for this simple mistake that could have been avoided through self-care. Having at least 8 hours a sleep a night is just one of the few ways a nurse can manage healthy living. A nurse’s work schedule can consists of mainly over

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)

Nurse staffing have an effect on a variety of areas within nursing. Quality of care is usually affected. Hospitals with low staffing tend to have higher incidence of poor patient outcomes. Martin, (2015) wrote an article on how insufficient nursing staff increases workload and job dissatisfaction, which in effect decreases total patient care over all. When nurse staffing is inadequate, the ability to practice ethically becomes questionable. Time worked, overtime, and total hours per week have significant effect on errors. When nurses works long hours, the more likely errors will be made. He also argued that inadequate staffing not only affects their patients but also their loved ones, future and current nursing staff, and the hospitals in which they are employed. An unrealistic workload may result in chronic fatigue, poor sleep patterns, and absenteeism thus affecting the patients they take care of.

Within the recent years, hospitals and medical facilities have been experiencing nursing shortages that necessitate more nurses to be present to compensate for the care needed to be given. This requires nurses to be dealt with imperative extended work hours along with their normal shifts with no denial or excuse accepted. Working extra hours are accompanied with negative effects that have an impact on the nurse, coworkers, and patients. A major concern that occurs with overtime is that nurses become fatigued or burnout. Fatigue that is experienced is a result of sleep deprivation from working overtime that is associated with arduousness neurobehavioral functioning

This paper addresses how mandatory overtime shifts cause safety problems on the floor, and how these shifts impact nurses’ safety. Safety errors can happen in the blink of an eye, and happen more than most healthcare systems would like to admit. On-going issues with nursing shortages have led to an increase in the amount of hours worked overtime. Numerous studies show that mandatory overtime causes an increase in safety errors among nurses in the healthcare setting. According to the article based on the observational study titled, “Scheduling and shift work characteristics associated with risk for occupation injury in newly licensed registered nurses”, there is a direct association between overtime and night shifts and an increased risk for injury (Stimpfel, Brewer, & Kovner, 2015). The statistics from this study show the serious impact overtime can have on a nurses’ safety, with results stating that “nurses working weekly overtime were associated with a 32% increase in the risk of a needle stick” over those who did not work extended hours (Stimpfel, 2015).

Nurses are in charge of taking care of patients and their families through illness and wellness, but that is a difficult task to perform when the nurses themselves are not cared for. Townsend & Anderson (2013) suggested that nurses whom worked long shifts were more likely to be burned out, dissatisfied with their job, and were intending on leaving the profession within a year. Fatigue in itself is linked to decreases in alertness, memory, reaction time, and decision-making. There are many consequences due to nursing fatigue, which may be detrimental to the patient’s safety or the nurse’s. For instance, having a slowed reaction time, compromised problem solving and critical thinking, and experiencing lapses in attention to detail all lead to poor judgments furthering leading to poor patient care (Townsend & Anderson, 2013).

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

Limited attention has been paid to the hours worked by nurses, or the effects of these hours on patient safety (Rogers, 2008). Even though most nurses favor 12- hour shifts and overtime, it is associated with difficulties staying awake during times of duty, reduced sleep times, and triple the risk of making an error (Rogers, 2008). The most significant risk of making an error occurred when nurses were scheduled to work 12.5 hours or more.

The burnout of nurses is becoming an increasing problem worldwide today. Although much is already known for burnout occurring in hospitals, little is known about how to prevent burnout or reduce burnout from happening. That is the reasons for carrying out research on this specific topic. Engagement and burnout are opposite to each other, if a nurse is fully engaged at work they will more than likely not experience burnout. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects and causes of burnout with nurses in the workplace and to explore different factors which may act as barriers to nurse engagement through a review of the literature. Different theories and frameworks were examined to develop empirical evidence and provide research findings

The risks of making an error were significantly increased when work shifts were longer than twelve hours, when nurses worked overtime, or when they worked more than forty hours per week. (Trossman, 2009). Working longer hours in a high stress area will always increase the error rate. Designating an adequate number of RN positions to ensure nurses work an appropriate schedule without overtime and that their workload allows for breaks. Managerial staff must work to develop specific policies about the length of work times based on the setting, patient and provider needs. Those policies should limit nurses from working more than 12.5 consecutive hours. Provide education for all care providers on the hazards and causes of fatigue. Continue to document unsafe staffing conditions and work with others to change the current work culture so that it recognizes the effects of fatigue on patient safety, as well as the nurse. (Berger, et al. 2006)

Higher patient turnover occurs on 6,9 of shifts despite the proportion was 14.9% on day shifts, 5 on evening shifts and 0.2% on night shifts. The risk of death increased 2% each time a patient is exposed to shifts with below target RN staffing. The average patient in the study was expose three nursing shifts with below target staffing result in a 6% higher risk of mortality than patients with no exposhir to below target staffing. The risk of mortality was 4% higher when a patient was exposed to a high-turnover

Research studies and surveys have identified many factors contributing to nurse fatigue which tend to intersect with one another to cause a more significant effect than any one factor would alone. A common theme in the literature is the issue of nurses caring for too many patients for an extended period of time (Tabone, 2004). This often comes as a result of inadequate staffing of registered nurses (Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, 2011) which is another contributing factor to nurse fatigue. Nurses report working long shifts of more than 12 hours, not having sufficient time to rest prior to their next shift, and changing shifts within the week as factors contributing to their fatigue (Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, 2011). All of these things result in a

As hospitals begin to become more high-tech, the need for more educated nurses increases. In order to compensate for the lack of staffing in higher-technology or teaching hospitals, nurses can end up working 12 or more hours per shift (Witkoski Stimpfel, Sloane, and Aiken, 2012b). The majority of the hospitals in the United States have adopted a 12 hour shift schedule (Geiger-Brown and Trinkoff, 2010). This type of schedule has allowed hospitals to retain staff nurses without having to resort to using outside resources (Knoll, 2013). However, the 12 hour shift schedule also has its risks and benefits.