There is ample evidence that working the late night shift is hard on nurses. This paper has 9 references (all scholarly) that show different problems nurses encounter when they work the late night shift. They are known to become overweight, they suffer from vascular stress, they are prone to get diabetes and other maladies. Also the nurse working overnight has trouble with social and family relationships as a rule.
Nurses working the late shift (3-11, or overnight, 11-7) are subject to negative impacts due to physical and mental health issues. This paper delves into those issues for nurses and provides scholarly reference information detailing those health matters.
Nursing and Shift Work
Sarah Bills explains that about 4.6% of American employees work the 3:00 P.M. To 11:00 P.M. shift and 3.5% of workers are at work from 11:00 P.M. To 7:00 A.M. Meanwhile healthcare services require specific skills, including "human cognition and executive functions" including logic, judgment, decision-making that is often complex, vigilance, memory, detection, good communication and the careful management of technical information (Bills, 2008). But because the circadian rhythm is "disturbed" by working at night and sleeping during the day, and hence when the body's natural circadian rhythm is disturbed, it presents hardships like "…fatigue and a decreased ability to concentrate…increased levels of stress" along with a lessening of positive social interaction (Bills, 3). Also, colorectal cancers are known to result from sleep deprivation, Bills adds.
Meanwhile, peptic ulcers were "…twice as frequent among former shift workers as day workers," according to research of former night shift nurses that was published in the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety, Volume 2 (Stellman, 1998). Another pair of studies that Stellman references -- by Aanonsen (1964) and Angerbach (1980) -- reflected the fact that there were (respectively) "…two and three-and-a-half times as many cases of peptic ulcers among former regular shift workers" (Stellman).
In the book Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine (Croskerry, et al., 2009) the authors list the negative medical conditions that are associated with shift work, and they include: a) peptic ulcers and other gastrointestinal disorders; b) cardiovascular disease; c) mood disturbances; d) impaired immunity; e) infertility; f) "increased risk of preterm birth and fetal growth retardation"; g) anxiety and mood disorders; h) burnout and stress; i) weight gain and obesity; j) higher risk of auto accidents and accidents at work; k) family problems more likely (including divorce); l) "increased risk of epilepsy in predisposed people"; and m) "possible predisposition to diabetes, and exacerbation in diabetics" (Croskerry, 260).
A 2012 scholarly study conducted to assess the impacts on nurses who work late shifts at hospitals showed that between 32 and 37% of 1,968 nurses suffered from "…shift work disorder" (including insomnia during daytime sleep periods and "anxiety") (Flo, et al., 2012, p. 2).
Naps taken during an all-night nursing shift have been found to be helpful in terms of keeping nurses alert, according to an article in the peer-reviewed journal Critical Care Nurse (Fallis, et al., 2011). Sleep deprivation threatens "…patient and nurse safety," Fallis explains, so a survey was conducted with 13 critical care nurses (they averaged 17 years experience), and of those 13, ten nurses reported that they take brief naps during the all-night shifts. The "restorative naps" that were taken of course depended on the "…demands of patient care" (Fallis, e1).
In the Journal of Nursing Management the authors interviewed 27 registered/enrolled community nurses in Sweden, all of whom were working the late night shift. Two main areas of concern were reported by the nurses based on "81 critical incidents"; their circadian rhythm was interrupted causing disturbance to: a) their normal nutritional intake; and b) their exercise programs (Persson, et al., 2006). The authors believe however that by identifying those factors that have an influence on diet and exercise, "…strategies can be developed in order to strengthen the factors with a positive influence" (Persson, 414).
Elaine Marquezea and colleagues explain in the peer-reviewed journal Work that after receiving completed questionnaires from 446 nursing professionals, and performing linear and logistic regression analysis, that "working at night is associated with a weight gain greater than 0.24 kg" as compared with day workers who averaged just 0.18 kg in weight gained. Hence, the result of the survey shows that working at night "…contributes to more weight gain than the day shift" (Marquezea, 2012, p. 2043).
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