Literature Review - Nursing Project

Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW – NURSING PROJECT
Literature Review – Nursing Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LITERATURE REVIEW – NURSING PROJECT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1. Reducing Work Hours for Nurses......................................................................................3
2. Recognition of Nurse Fatigue by Hospital Administration................................................4
3. More Rest and Flexible Shift Timings for Nurses..............................................................4
4. Gaps in the Literature Reviewed........................................................................................6
References and Bibliography.....................................................................................................8

2LITERATURE REVIEW – NURSING PROJECT
Introduction
Nurses form a valuable and integral part of every hospital or medical clinic. Nurses
work for long hours in the day and attend to patients who are admitted in the hospital, for
treatment or surgery. Nurses also assist doctors and surgeons with the work that they do and
are seldom known to take a break in between their tasks, demonstrating great dedication and
efficiency in the work that they do. They move from one task to another in an almost
effortless fashion. As a result, the problem of stress and fatigue for nurses, both male as well
as female, is one that tends to be quite high. Almost all the nurses working in Australia are
known to suffer fatigue in some form or the other. This essay undertakes a literature review
on the issue of nurse stress and fatigue in hospitals and nursing homes, with the aim of the
review being to uncover strategies to combat the problem of nurse fatigue and stress in the
best way possible.
1. Reducing Work Hours for Nurses
Peter Griffiths and others (2014), have raised the concern of nurse fatigue and high
stress levels in their recent research on the subject. They argue that nurses who are made to
work for a shift that is longer than twelve hours are more likely to report problems like
patient safety failure than nurses who are made to work for less than twelve hours. According
to them, most hospitals today opt for the twelve to thirteen hour shift timing in order to avoid
the confusion that occurs at the time of shift handover from one nurse to another. Nurses are
also made to work twelve hour shifts in order to help hospitals and medical setups cut down
on costs on the pay of healthcare professionals. This in turn has an adverse effect on their
health and they end up feeling highly stressed and failing in their duties, the primary one
being patient care and safety so only by making them work for under twelve hours can be the