Nursing Issue: Long Working Hours and its Impact on Nurses' Health

This report discusses the issue of long working hours in nursing and its impact on nurses' health. It highlights the risks and challenges faced by nurses due to long shifts and provides recommendations for resolution. The report also explores the socio-cultural, political, and economic perspectives related to this issue.

Running Head: NURSING ISSUE
NURSING ISSUE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The long hours of work in the hospital has always been a problem with the nurses as it
increases the burden of work over them as well as affects their health. As the hospital
requires the nurses to do their duty round the clock which ultimately leads to the working
beyond the shift timings. This increases the debate between the management of the hospital
and the nursing staff about the working hours of the nurses as it directly impacts their
physical health that will ultimately deteriorate the patient outcome which is the sole aim of
nursing (Carusco, 2014). As the thesis statement is the identification and resolution of
nursing problems, this report will highlight on the analysis of the issues that are identified
with the nursing and will also focus on the barriers that impede the resolution of the issues.
This will also provide the recommendations that are needed in order to solve the problems.
Finally the report will conclude by synthesizing the details about the issues faced by the
nurses after working for long hours and the resolutions that should be taken in order to
overcome the barriers and to enhance the quality of care provided by the nurses.
Discussion
The long working hours of the nurses raises the risk of short sleep duration as well as
sleep disturbances. This poses great risk to the nurses, patients and the healthcare employers
as well (Carusco, 2014). It is seen that the long shift hours increase the risk of decrease in the
performance in the job of the nurses at the hospitals. It also increases the risk of risk of
obesity and the medical errors due to fatigue. There is a lot of scientific evidence that clearly

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shows that adequate sleep is necessary to maintain healthy life and to ensure safe work
environments. The introduction of the 12-hour shifts in the nursing job has raised a lot of
concerns among the staff as working overtime is associated with adverse care of patients due
to the cumulative effects of fatigue, lack of rest along with deterioration of the working
environments (Griffiths et al., 2014). Another important findings in relation to that of
working for long hours is the increase in the job dissatisfaction of the nurses. It is also related
to the dissatisfaction with the flexibility with the schedule of the work and the high rates of
burnouts that is increased number of cases where the nurses are willing to leave their job
(Dall’Ora et al., 2015).
There are a lot of cases shown in the previous literature review that has shown the
reasons behind the high burnout of the nurses after the increase in the working hours. The
literature has clearly shown the relation between the decrease in the quality of patient care
and long working shifts of the nurses. The high rate of fatigue among the nurses increases the
threat to both the nurses and the patient safety as the increase in the fatigue of the nurses
affects the neurocognitive functioning of the nurses that hinders the performance of the
nurses. Research also shows that the work load is related to the support from the management
that will help in reducing the risk of acute and chronic fatigue (Han, Trinkoff & Brown,
2014). There has been a lot of study done on the topic in order to analyze the situation
regarding the correlation between the lengths of the shifts that are assigned to a nurse and the
medical errors done by them. As it is needed for the nurses to provide the quality care it is

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very important to provide the nurses with adequate amount of rest and sleep which is
hampered by the long work shifts (Stimpfel & Aiken, 2014).
Social-Cultural Perspective
As stress is an everyday process it cannot be removed completely from the life. There
are a number of factors that are responsible for the increasing amount of stress among the
nurses (Chen et al., 2014). It also includes the socio-cultural perspective of the nurses that
work for long hours in the hospital. As most of their time is devoted to the patients and thus,
it is related to the disturbances in their interpersonal relations. This leads to a lot more of
stress among the nurses that finally affects their physical as well as mental health
(Papathanasiou et al., 2015).
Research has shown a relation between the socio-cultural effect and the amount of
stress faced by the nurses in the organization. The social demands of the individuals who
work as nurses is hampered as the individuals work for long hours that affects their social
life. There is also decreases amount of communication between the nurses and their peer due
to workloads that they cannot share their emotions and that results in high burnout among the
nurses. The nurses can also feel problem with the management of the people as they are much
more concerned about the duty that should be provided by the nurses and not about the
quality of care (Benavente et al., 2014).

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Political Perspective
There are certain political perspective that also affects the nursing staff and compels
them to work for long hours within the clinic. This is affects the regularity of the nurses at the
work place which ultimately affects the positive patient outcome. The increase in the shift of
the nurses is due to increase workload and the shortage in the number of nurses (Zboril,
2016). The shortage in the nurses increases the amount of work that has to be done by other
present nurses that ultimately affects the quality received by each patient.
The political perspective also affects the working conditions of the healthcare
environment. The increase in the working shifts is also perceived by the amount of
workloads that rises drastically due to the decrease in the number of nurses. The long hours
of nursing affects the health but, imposing the long hours also hampers the political
viewpoint of the organization (Manyisa et al., 2017). The overtime working of the nurses is
used by the hospitals in order to control the chronic deficiency of the nurses. In order to
maintain continuous support to the patients the organizations are hampering the relations with
that of the nurses that in turn results in adverse patients outcomes (Bae, 2013).
Economic Perspective
The economic perspective highlights the issues that are faced by the nurses by doing
their profession. The economic evaluation becomes a lot more important for some staff as
working for extra hours gives them extra monetary benefits that might be needed by them.
However, this might not be the case in every hospital as a large number of organizations

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consider cost offsets as an important tool for the management of the patient resources. It is
also considered as a strategy that the organizations or hospitals undertake in order to impact
the staffing level (Bock et al., 2015).
The pay-for-performance does not increase the interest of a lot nursing staffs as it
comes as a vehicle for the improvement in the nursing staff and to raise the working
conditions of the staff in the nurses as research tends to link the nursing investments with that
of the better patient outcomes (Buchan & Dussault, 2013). The other economic issues that is
faced by nursing depends on the demand, supply competition and the failure in the market.
The nurses need to understand the economic realities of the health care sector so that they can
help the organization in order to achieve the shared goal.
Barrier to Resolution
The nursing profession is thus, faced by a number of hurdles that need to be resolved.
However, there are certain barriers in order to achieve the shared aim of providing quality
care to the patients. The resolutions faces a number of barriers, out of which three barriers are
discussed - Communication is a big barrier towards the achievement of nursing goal. Thus,
the nurses needs to be trained in multi-dimensional communication process so that there is a
flow between the management of the organization and the nursing staff. The effective
communication not only help the nurses to provide positive patient outcome, it also helps in
the assessment of the needs and requirements of the nurses (Nourazinia et al., 2016). The
second barrier to nursing issue is the lack of time that reduces the effect of nurses to provide

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evidence-based practice. As the nurses experience heavy patient loads the nurse faces a
number of limitations to provide patient-centered care. This affects the holistic approach
taken by the nurses to achieve desirable patient outcome (Cna-aiic.ca, 2019). The last barrier
to nursing is the effective workplace violence that is a very challenging aspect at the
healthcare. The violence faced by the nurses is due to the lack of accountability of the
management and also due to the model based on which the organization that is profit driven
(Blando et al., 2015).
Strategies to Resolution
Rationale
The rationale behind the resolutions that are needed for the nursing issue involves a
number of factors namely the effective communication strategy that increases the efficiency
of the nurses with that of the management and the patients (Johonson et al., 2014). There
should be effective time management among the nurses in order to provide them with ample
amount of rest and sleep. This will help in providing support for the shortage of the nurses
and the nurses will not have to be burdened by the increase in the amount of work. The lack
management should be much more accountable towards the workplace violence faced by the
nurses as overtime leads to long office hours and along with that increase in the violence will
again force the nurses to leave the job (Blando et al., 2015).

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Recommendations
The following two recommendations can be utilized by the healthcare sector in order
to provide solutions to the nursing problems includes the implementation of the policies that
will help in assessing the capacity of the nurses and also to judge the amount of nurses that
are required to perform a particular task in the hospital. As the requirements changes
continuously from patient to patient thus, the arrangements of the nurses should be such that
it fits the demands and the patient’s requirements (Asuquo et al., 2013). The other
recommendation is the use of the interdisciplinary team that will support the nurses at the
time of adverse situations. As the team will involve a number of individuals who are
specialized in the various field thus, it will help in reducing the work load of the nurses.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded from the report that the nurses need rest and sleep otherwise,
they will generate fatigue that will hamper the work efficacy of the nurses as well as the
patient outcome. The increase in the working hours are related to high amount of stress that
hampers the health of the nurses. There are a number of socio-cultural, political and
economic perspectives that forms the basis of the nursing issues faced by the nurses. As the
organization is profit-driven and always focuses on the benefit of the organization it
overshadows the needs and desires of the nurses. The long shift hours also affects the
personal relations of the patients. There are certain resolutions that can help in reducing the
long work hours of the patients however, these resolutions face a number of barriers as

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nursing profession is a multi-level profession and thus, the resolutions need to be effective for
all the individuals involved with the profession. The report also suggest some
recommendations for the nursing issues that are related with the long shift hours that includes
the involvement of the interdisciplinary team as well as the involvement of the management
in order to implement certain laws and policies that will help in the better structuring of the
healthcare organization. The recommendations need to be implemented in order to provide
better working environments of the nurses and also to reduce the stress and fatigue of the
nurses which will ultimately benefit the organization as the nurses will be able to provide the
patient with better service resulting in positive patient outcomes.

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