Nurses on Night Shifts: Their Lived Experiences

A night shift is an irregular working hours mainly scheduled for work at night. In Philippines, a hospital night shift is typically starts at 10 pm to 7 am, or 9 pm to 6 am for 8-hour shifts, and 6 am to 6 pm for 12-hour shifts. Nurses as health care providers are obliged to work during night to provide the continuity of care needed by the sick and ill people. Moreover, working for irregular hours can affects the health and the safety of the nurses. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, our body clock typically is set for a routine of daytime activity and night time sleep, working irregular or night hours can be associated with disrupted or insufficient sleep. The rising demand of night shift in hospital indicated a positive social economic however, it also possesses several issue regarding about shift workers’ well-being.

Poor sleep quality and generalised fatigue from shift work have significant impacts on the nurses’ overall mood. As such irritability, lack of interest in social events, and exhaustion are common among shift workers. Secondly, Large number of shift workers experience social isolation owing to the nature of their work as they find it difficult to spend time with friends and relatives. As a further consequence many nurses reportedly use smoking and binge drinking as coping strategies. Lastly, nurses deals with emotional situations that involve stress, anxiety, joy, expectation, anger, new life and death.

A study of Night Shift Registered Nurses in an Acute care setting: showed negative and positive aspects of working a night shift schedule. Negative aspects of night shift nursing included a feeling of being misunderstood and undervalued professionally and personally. An inadequate resource, on the night shift, was also identified as a barrier to nurses satisfaction, and negatively influencing the provision of quality nursing care and quality orientation of new nurses. Negative Physiologic influences of night shift centered around poor quality and quantity of sleep. Revealed social and psychosocial adjustment of night shift nurses. Their research found that these nurses suffered more negative psychological effects such as disenfranchisement, work anger, and anxiety as well as physical effects such as impaired cognition and alertness when asked to work during the evening or night times. Another study as to the Effects of Night Shift Schedules on Nurses Working in a Private Hospital in South Africa revealed that working night shift cause psychosocial strain and physiological strain to registered nurses, especially those working a quick rotation. The nurses expressed more complaints about night shift than day shift.

Graveyard shift is rapidly increasing over the world. Graveyard shift by its definition is an evocative term for the night shift between about midnight and eight in the morning. Graveyard shift work is not a new idea in the country. Many workers such as: security guards, police, military, doctors, and nurses have long been assigned to work night shift.