The Impact Of Nurse Fatigue

Nurses play many roles in today’s society; they have to balance family, life, and their job. Nursing is a very demanding profession; you are caring for the sick with limited resources causing nurses to create unrealistic expectations (Bush, 2009). Nurses create a tireless arrangement and emotional connections with patients, shouldering a huge supporting role. Supporting this role causes nurses to feel emotional exhaustion and the weight of care for patients can become overwhelming. Signs of emotional exhaustion can cause nurse to become hostile, isolated, start crying for no reason, and getting upset (Bush, 2009).

Nurses work long hours and deal with high levels of stress during the workday which leads to nurse burnout. Nurse burnout is classified as physical and mental fatigue, which strongly affects the nurses emotions and motivation. (“Nursing Burnout”). Burnout is caused by various factors within the workplace, such as dealing with a hectic, fast-paced environment, caring for too many patients at one time, and working odd hours. When nurses deal with multiple patients per shift, high levels of responsibility, and their own personal problems, they can become exhausted and overwhelmed. Stress due to burnout can also affect the nurse’s mood in a negative way, causing the nurse to become impatient or irritable, which can oftentimes results in verbal or emotional abuse towards the

In the recent past, nursing has come to the forefront as a popular career amongst students across the globe. The demand for nurses has kept increasing gradually over the years. In fact, the number of registered nurses does not meet the demand of the private and public health sector. This phenomenon has resulted in a situation where the available registered nurses have to work extra hours in order to meet the patients’ needs. With this in mind, the issue of nurse fatigue has come up as a common problem in nursing. According to the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), nurse fatigue is “a feeling of tiredness” that penetrates a persons physical, mental and emotional realms limiting their ability to function normally. Fatigue does

A fatigued nurse can lead to many errors and compromise the care given to a patient. Nurse fatigue has been found to increase depression. If a nurse has an altered mindset to begin with, they will not be able to take care of anyone else adequately. Nurse fatigue can also increase irritability. A nurse with increased irritability could lead the nurse to make irrational decisions. The nurse with sleep deprivation has an increased risk for error. A nurse is responsible for administering drugs. When a nurse is extremely tired, it could lead them to mess up the medications prescribed for the patient or to overlook reactions that the patient may experience from the medications. The nurse is also responsible for focusing on the care provided to the patient. A fatigued nurse could be too tired to notice crucial changes in the patient. The fatigued nurse will be affected in his or her performance. Nurse fatigue could also result in the nurses injuring themselves. Nurse fatigue could influence a nurse to make shortcuts and that can also endanger the nurse. For example, if a nurse has to lift a patient using a hoyer lift, but misjudges the situation because of lack of energy, the nurse could end up lifting the patient by herself and hurting her back. This is how nurse fatigue relates to the safety of the practicing nurse and patient

When nurses experience fatigue due to excessive overtime, effects that can occur are reduced decision making ability, reduced communication skills, increased forgetfulness, increased tendency of risk taking, reduced ability to handle stress on the job, decreased ability to do complex planning, and inability to recall details which can all danger patients wellbeing. Unfortunately even with all the

Within the recent years, hospitals and medical facilities have been experiencing nursing shortages that necessitate more nurses to be present to compensate for the care needed to be given. This requires nurses to be dealt with imperative extended work hours along with their normal shifts with no denial or excuse accepted. Working extra hours are accompanied with negative effects that have an impact on the nurse, coworkers, and patients. A major concern that occurs with overtime is that nurses become fatigued or burnout. Fatigue that is experienced is a result of sleep deprivation from working overtime that is associated with arduousness neurobehavioral functioning

Long-term effects of fatigue can lead to nursing "burn out" and decreased job satisfaction, often leading to self-termination within a year (Maust Martin, 2015). In a qualitative study performed many nurses negatively correlated their level of fatigue with job satisfaction. One participant discussed feelings of decreased patience and being short in responses to others, often lacking compassion for those who needed support. Another participant stated that the level of fatigue she continuously undergoes would more than likely contribute to her leaving her position as a floor nurse within the years (Steege, Rainbow, 2017). However, this is not the only negative impact of fatigue on a nurse’s

“Burnout has been widely studied in the health service profession, and nursing is recognized as one of the occupations with the highest burnout prevalence rates” (Harkin & Melby, 2014, p. 152). Nursing burnout affects many nurses in the profession in one way or another. In the nursing world, a typical shift length is now twelve hours or longer. This shift length has changed from the past in which nurses worked a normal shift of eight hours. While there are benefits and disadvantages to each of these shifts, there has to be a regulation of total hours worked in a week. Nurses who work at the bedside of critically ill patients witness marked human suffering (Sacco, Ciurzynski, Harvey, &

Nursing burnout is serious and in order to ensure that nurses are taken care of, the administration must implement incentives and policies that will provide nurses with the resources to maintain a healthy work life balance. Burnout accounts for many of the medication errors and patient injuries in healthcare facilities. Most nurses are overwhelmed because of the caseload and longer workdays necessary to complete charting. Many nurses are also disgruntled because of denied vacation requests that cannot be approved because of non-coverage. Research has shown that when employees are happy then there are less errors and injuries in

(Senteniel) Additional studies show risk of errors and close calls were related to longer shift length and were associated with decreased attentiveness. Nurses also suffer higher rates of occupational injury when working shifts more than 12 hours. (Joint Commision, 20111) The ANA acknowledges the relationship between working long hours and increased risk for sleep disturbances, injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, gastrointestinal problems, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adverse reproductive outcomes. (NANN, 2012) In addition to clinical outcomes, there is an association between nurses who worked 13 or more hours in the hospital and lack of communication with patients regarding pain control. Burnout is common among nurses working long shifts and they are more than likely to leave their job within the first year. Shifts scheduled for 12 hours often exceed that timeframe, as many as 40% of the work shifts logged for their study exceeded 12 hours. (Martin, 2012) There are many reasons for fatigue, but shift length is the one that is most obvious and easy to fix. It is no wonder for nurse fatigue when 12 hour shifts are the norm. Twelve hour shifts are standard practice even though the Institute of Medicine recommends limiting them. At a recent nursing management congress Cole Edmonson stated that 12 hour shifts may cause more problems than they solve. While research is aiding us comprehend the dangers nurse fatigue brings to patients and nurses themselves, he called 12 hour shifts “a dead idea whose time has passed”. Eliminating 12 hour shifts is obvious if the fact is acknowledged that nurse fatigue is a serious problem. (Hendren,

Can you imagine costing a patient their life due to your lack of sleep, long shifts, and working to many hours? Me either. “In 2011, the Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert to call attention to health care worker fatigue as it relates to patient safety, noting a link between healthcare worker fatigue and adverse events. In addition to patient safety concerns, there is an increased risk of injury in fatigued healthcare workers (Martin, 2015).” Lets explore the dangers of fatigue, and its importance to nurses, way that nurses can prevent fatigue, and possible ways to lower fatigue and enhance sleep. What standards are in place in the nurse practice

Merriam-Webster (2014) describes fatigue as “weariness or exhaustion from labor, exertion, or stress”. Fatigue can be caused or worsened by extended hours of wakefulness, acute or chronic sleep debt (Birmingham, Dent, & Ellerbe, 2013), and increased stress of workload including higher acuity patients. The effects of fatigue on nurse and patient safety have been shown to increase the risk of patient care errors three fold with an increase in the risk of near errors and occupational injuries, as well (Joint Commission, 2012). Nurses have reported experiencing an increase in medication errors, difficulty staying awake and decreased productivity in the last four hours of their twelve hour shift (Keller, 2009). Patient hand-off reports are also a high-risk area that suffers when the

Mandatory overtime has become an increasing problem for nurses who work in many hospital settings. Mandatory overtime is defined as additional hours added to a nurse’s current shift, making the nurse feel as if it’s a threat of being fired or disciplinary action will be taken in some form if they refuse to stay and work. Extensive overtime studies have established and confirmed that there are serious dangers to both the nurse and the patient being cared for in all types of healthcare settings.

The term 12 hour shift is used to refer to a two shift system associated with an extended working day, as supposed to an eight hour workshift. Twelve-hour shifts have become the normality and standard shift option for nursing over recent years across the United States (Harris, Sims, Parr, & Davies et al., 2014 p.606). Longer work hours are viewed as a positive impact on recruitment, potential financial savings, retention, and enhanced continuity of care (National Nursing Research Unit, 2013; NHS Evidence, 2010). However, it’s also evident that longer shifts result in nurse fatigue, errors, and reduced alertness. The concept of longer hour shifts have become quite the controversial topic among the healthcare system.

There are numerous elements that contribute to stress in the healthcare setting. Nurses’ days are full of physical, mental and emotional demands. There are societal demands and workplace demands created by the shortage. These stressors can become increasingly overwhelming and if there is no stress relief, job performance can and will be hindered. When fatigue and stress combine there is potential for “performance decrements”. This can include diminished capacity to manage a specific level of workload resulting in errors in the delivery of nursing care. This can produce damaging effects on the safety and advantageous outcomes for both the nurses and patients. (Reese, 2011). Therefore, finding a balance between lowering stress levels of