12 Hour Shifts in Nursing

7 October 2011 Effects on Nurses Working Long Hours 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 the workplace due to fatigue and irregular sleep schedules. Along with these reasons and other beliefs, 12-hour shifts in nursing should be revoked. The risks outweigh the benefits for extended hour shifts in hospitals and/or healthcare facilities, for both the patients and nurses. Nurses who work 12 or more hours in a single shift put at risk the health of themselves along with the health of the patients who they are treating. Working extended shifts causes fatigue, stress and lack of productivity. Errors are most common in nurses who are fatigued from working long and grueling hours. It is estimated 1. 3 million health care errors occur each year and of those errors 48,000 to 98,000 result in patient deaths. Many of these errors lead to malpractice suits and thousands of dollars lost (Keller, 497). This proves that working long hours in a health care environment will make nurses more prone to making error that may lead to patient death. Patient death is what the hospital and faculty members are trying to avoid, revoking long hour shifts seems like a proper way to start. As for the health of the nurse, nurses who work long hours are affecting their health in many ways. Some health problems that may occur in nurses are sleep problems, listlessness, and unable to think clearly. According to The American Heart Association, shift workers are inclined to drink more caffeinated beverages such as, coffee and energy drinks, smoke, and exercise less often. Along with these problems, working shifts and extended hours interfere with the body’s natural circadian rhythm, especially if working night shift. Human beings are designed to work during the daylight, not at night. â€Å"Symptoms of fatigue can include muscle weakness, lethargy, inability to think clearly or concentrate, listlessness, decreased cognitive function, anxiety, and exhaustion† (Keller, 499). This would not be acceptable for the high demands of nursing. Nurses need to be able to think clearly and stay sharp to make flash decisions incase the patients health rapidly decreases. If they are tired, they may lose this capability. Nurses also have to be able to work in high-pressure situations. If anxiety were a symptom of fatigue, this would jeopardize both the nurses and the patients. The nurse may lose her job for working while fatigued, and the patient may lose their life for not having proper care. Todays nurses would most likely oppose this argument. Most of todays nurses work long 12-hour shifts and favor them than five eight-hour shifts. They prefer working three 12-hour shifts, and then having four days off in a week. Nurses who work this shift can take a couple vacation days or sick days and be off for weeks at a time. They believe that working these long hour shifts do not affect their ability to care for patients, because they can drink coffee or soda and can take a nap on their lunch breaks. This argument may seem plausible, but reality is that these are only temporary fixes and may feel even more exhausted than before. In addition, during the four days they have off, they may feel weak and dazed so they will not be able to work a second part-time job if wanted or be with their loved-ones. After working that many hours in such a short period of time, they would need those four days off to compensate for the hard work they just endured. Health care administrators argue that having only two shifts a day (day and night) will help improve patient care because there would only be two nurses who would take care of a patient during a 24-hour shift. But still, it takes more hired nurses to fill a weeks schedule to accommodate each 12 hour shift is covered because a nurse can only work so many hours in a week. Annette Richardson claims that nurses who work extended hour shifts will be less productive during the last 2 to 3 hours of their shift. Signs of nurses being unproductive are; if he/she is taking a longer time to be with a patient than necessary, not completing patient charts and not being thorough on reports (Carson, 830). Nursing administration is there to help make patients and nurses happy and healthy. Health care administration wants the most work productivity as possible, and with having the last 3 hours of a nurses shift being unproductive will diminish that goal. Studies have shown that the most productive work schedule is working an eight-hour shift because it has the least number of errors due to workers fatigue and exhaustion. Nurses who also work long hour shifts may experience work ‘burnout’. A Burnout is a form of chronic stress related to ones job. Burnout occur most frequently in nurses who work long hours in high stress areas, such as critical care, oncology, or burn units. Symptoms of burnouts include fatigue, frequent colds, headaches, and insomnia. Mental symptoms may include decreased ability to solve problems and unwillingness to face problems and change. Nurses who suffer from burnout may quit their job or change jobs outside of the nursing profession. This causes shortages, which is currently a big issue in todays world. Not enough people are interested in the nursing career because of the high burnout rate. Linda Wilson was burning out because she worked the 3pm to 11pm shift in the critical care unit. The hospital was understaffed and had a lot of overtime. She barely got five hours a sleep a night (Ellis, 599). This proves that working too many extended hours a week with not enough sleep will cause burnout that leads to lost jobs. Lost jobs makes the shortage of nurses even higher and affecting patient care by not having enough nurses necessary to provide proper care and support to their patient during their stay. Overall, long hour shifts in nursing may have its pluses such as, a four-day weekend to be home with their loved-ones, but it also has its negative effects. Extended shifts may causes nurses to make errors while working from a lack of sleep and fatigue. This may end up in patient death or malpractice, which is the opposite of what nurses, and administrators are there to do. 12-hour days will eventually cause harm to him/herself because our bodies are not meant to work long and grueling hours because fatigue disrupts their ability to think clearly and quickly and may cause stress. With all of these going against them, they might get burned out and decide to quit or change jobs. An abundance of burnouts will create a larger nursing shortage than there already is, making the whole situation worse. I believe working 8-hours a day with three total shifts to make up a 24 hour day is the best way for both the nurses and the patients sake. It will reduce the amount of errors made do to fatigue and it will increase productivity in the workplace because nurses would not be affected by exhaustion. Works Cited