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

Running Head: NURSING ISSUE
NURSING ISSUE
Name of the Student
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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).