Night Shift Work and Its Health Effects on Nurses, Research Paper Example

Optimal healthcare is one of the most necessary attributes in healthcare facilities. Night shift has got a tremendous negative effect on healthcare professionals. When we compare the night shift workers to the day shift workers, they seem to have deteriorated health due to sleep deprivation, social disturbances, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. This study analyzes how the night shift affects nurses’ health outcomes through primary sources and other identified resources.

Summary of research

The research article tends to apply the quantitative research design to explain the outcomes of the research topic.  The identified design was a cross-sectional descriptive design. The author applies three qualitative questionnaires to help support the quantitative response. As identified by Books et al. (2020), the night shift starts at 1900 hrs, to 0700hrs. They were using the Lickert type scale, where one was related to disagree strongly and 5 to agree strongly. The research participants signed an electronic agreement before taking part in the survey. The data were then tabulated to give proper responses given by the nurses.

Books et al. states the following assumptions in their research literature review:

• Night shift workers had a constant increase in BMI than the day workers over time.
• Night shift workers, inclusive of the rotating night shift workers, were highly at risk of being obese, having breast cancer, diabetes, compromised immune response than the day shift workers.
• Night shift workers were at a high risk of cardiovascular disease than other workers.

In most instances, most healthcare professionals would prefer working in straight shifts, either day or night, rather than having a rotating shift. However, most individuals would refer to the concept that nurses working in the night shift are highly likely to be deprived of their sleep, which may lead to chronic sleep deprivation. In some cases, sleep-deprived nurses often make errors at the patients’ cost, thus an alarming effect (Arzalier et al., 2018). That suggests that it creates a series of metabolic disturbances, anxiety, depression, suppression of the immune system, and cognitive impairment. These results were critically analyzed and concluded that it had a high risk of failing stressors, mood changes, depression, and irritability.

An increase in BMI related to rotating night shift overtime is majorly attributed to a high risk of obesity and not being overweight. The research shows that that the results of 5 years of night shift experience would increase to up to 0.17 units of the BMI measurement (Books et al., 2020). That the patient may become obese with time easily.

An increased risk of being diabetic was also identified as one of the negative effects of the rotational night shift. Most people tend to use caffeine to stay awake (Knauth et al., 2012).  In the long run, they take too many sugary items to stay awake.  The sugary items taken are a coping mechanism used to make them stay awake. In this case, they tend to need more energy and more wake hours. Their limited time also does not give them time to prepare healthy foods. In the long run, that makes them susceptible to certain medical conditions such as diabetes and cancer-related diseases.

Night shift has a serious effect on cardiovascular disease. This is seen where they have minimal time to opt for exercise and still maintain the energy required to stay awake at night. Their influencing diet may be a factor that limits their exercise habits. Most nurses may start exercising, but their limited energy capacity may deprive them of further indulgence in exercise options.

Major variables

The variables applied in this paper were; health perception, health effects, participants’ demographics, and background.

Participant’s demographics and background as a variable tend to divide the research participants into different categories; age, sex, employment status, shift worked, smocking status, and alcohol consumption. It is noted that age suggests that people over the age of 61 had not participated in the night shift; also, 42.9% of the individuals under the age of 31-40 were found to be the most participants in the research/ the females in the sex section were the most affected. Those with an associate degree in terms of education were the most participants. Full-timers took the major section of the number of participants as compared to part-timers and PRN. Most individuals participated in the night shift and did not practice smoking but yet a high number drunk alcohol.

Health effects as a variable helped in contemplating the need to work as a night shift or opt-out if possible. Also, it helped analyzed certain responses as to why the health effects could be increasing. Most applied units of measurements were; the likability of the rotating shifts, usage of caffeine, amount of time spent sleeping, the number of times one has fallen asleep while performing an activity, and the number of times one used OTC medications to help in sleep aids.

Another variable used in this research paper was health Perception. The participants, in this case, answered questions about an increased risk of family stressors, risk of mood changes, fatigue, and other related conditions, the risk of medical problems, the likelihood of obesity, social performance, and the risk of diabetes.

Strengths and weakness

This paper critically analyzes the concept of night shift work and its health effects using various variables, which helped increase the ability to understand health effects and their relation to poor health outcomes. The strength relies on the ability to discuss the issues in-depth and help give a conceptual framework that tends to build a working structure to understand the idea of night shifts, rotational effects, and health outcomes.

With the growth of personal computers, Nayak and Narayan, 2019, says that surveys can be really fast data collection as applied may be considered fast, saves space, and improves the kinds of responses to expect. The research methodology’s overall benefit is that it is fast, relaxing, interesting, and lighter.

However, it is notable that the research has a weakness of not correlating the variables keenly and building the connection directly to the research topic. The research does not explain the connection between smoking, alcohol to night shift working. We are left to conclude by further reading, and thereby it leaves the conclusive factor to the writer’s imaginative ability.

Another weakness that may come about in this research is the ethical concerns of the research survey (Nayak and Narayan, 2019). Privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity may come as an ethical concern in the process. Informed consent might be challenged by the traditional understanding of methodological complexities, which are substantially different.

Clinical practice guideline

The name of the website for the clinical practice guideline that I found was American Academy of Nursing. Within the website, the free mentionable facts were, a deprived sleep that is less than four hours may lead to a nurse driver’s risk of crashing 11.5 times (AJN, 2018). That suggest that sleep reduces the nursing services within clinical contexts. A nurse that has less than four hours of sleep is susceptible to errors in the medical field.

The society also needs a 24 hour hospital system where nursing services are expected. Therefore nurses are expected to work at an irregular proportion. Suggestively, it affects the nurse’s well-being and readiness. Further it may lead to disruption of circadian rhythms and sleep deprivation.

Thirdly according to the American Journal of nursing, long shifts and rotations may as well pose danger to the nurses and also to their patients. They may experience high burn out and thereby increase risk of health. This relates to the Pico- T question since it is suggests that sleep deprivation may have negative health risk onto the nurses including the disrupted circadian rhythms.

Fourth resource

The article titled -carcinogenicity of night shift work- tends to build a deeper understanding of one of the night shifts’ risks. In most cases, cancer is mostly caused by lifestyle and environmental factors (Ward et al., 2019). Evaluating this article gives us an analogy in understanding how night work has the potential of increasing the risk of breast cancer. That is compared to other cancers such as colorectal cancer and prostate cancer.

Night shift exposes workers to different conditions such as exposure to light in night conditions. Constant exposure to light in a dark schedule may lead to total tumors among females (Ward et al., 2019). The consistent link between exposures to artificial light (nighttime light) may lead to many medical conditions. Evidence shows that breast cancer is typically the aftermath of consistent exposure to artificial light.

Night shift workers have the highest likelihood of getting breast cancer (Ward et al., 2019).  Night shifts have been associated with increased susceptibility to cancer. When applied to people that work day hours, the carcinogenic impacts are likely to be greater among those in night shifts. Women are, however, exposed to an increased risk of breast cancer.

It is common that night shift workers have the highest risk for circadian disruption (Books et al., 2020). There is an alteration in female hormones for those that worked the night shift (Ward et al., 2019). Circadian disruption may lead to a disruption of the output signal. It synchronizes the hormones in the internal environment, especially in the light-dark environment. An affected hormone may lead to certain cancers: breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, and human pancreatic cancer.

Conclusion

Night-shift employees could be more susceptible to health issues such as lack of sleep, obesity, family stress, and overall elevated risk of health-related consequences.  As illustrated in this research paper, sleeping during the day may leave you susceptible to various disorders caused by imbalances in the immunes system. The high risk is that even a healthy diet may lead to diabetes, cancer-related conditions, or obesity if not well checked. Since nurses work a higher percentage of the night shift than employees in any other sector, this is a serious concern. Night shift nurses have expressed concern about rotating shifts.

Chronic sleep loss can have a detrimental effect on nurses who perform their duties in the night shift, according to the findings of this report. Not only can prolonged sleep deprivation damage a nurse’s health, but it can also have severe consequences. A lack of sleep may harm a nurse’s wellbeing; also, the serious consequences of sleep deprivation can affect the nurse’s capacity to deliver adequate treatment.

Conclusively, the healthcare working environment may never opt to rule out the night shift duty. However, it is needful that the nurses learn to apply their knowledge and practice in nursing care to mitigate the risk factor. For a good work shift progress, the nurse needs to schedule some quality time to ensure their time is not clashed with other activities and consider having an adequate time after that. Generally, the nurses may consider prioritizing self-care and also considering one shift (probably not possible to have only one shit entirely). However, self-care is recommendable to help ensure they have a monitored healthy diet and also proper exercising.

References

Arzalier-Daret, S., Buléon, C., Bocca, M. L., Denise, P., Gérard, J. L., & Hanouz, J. L. (2018). Effect of sleep deprivation after a night shift duty on simulated crisis management by residents in anesthesia. A randomized crossover study. Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine, 37(2), 161-166.

Books, C., Coody, L. C., Kauffman, R., & Abraham, S. (2020). Night shift work and its health effects on nurses. The health care manager, 39(3), 122-127.

Knauth, D. R., Pilecco, F. B., Leal, A. F., Seffner, F., & Teixeira, A. M. F. B. (2012). Staying awake: truck drivers’ vulnerability in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil. Revista de saude publica, 46, 886-893.

Nayak, M. S. D. P., & Narayan, K. A. (2019). Strengths and weakness of online surveys. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 24(5), 31-38.

Ward, E. M., Germolec, D., Kogevinas, M., McCormick, D., Vermeulen, R., Anisimov, V. N., … & Schubauer-Berigan, M. K. (2019). Carcinogenicity of night shift work. The Lancet Oncology, 20(8), 1058-1059.

AJN, American Journal of nursing, (May, 2018). Fighting night shift fatigue. Retrieved from www.nursingoutlook.org/article/s00296554(17)30600-0/fulltext.