The Negative Impacts of Involuntary Overtime in Nurses and Patients
Nursing is one of the most rigorous and significant jobs out there. Their job is a lot harder than what we think. Nursing does not only necessitate looking after patients, treating patients who are sick and injured, they are also required to offer advice and emotional support to the patients and families and being with them throughout their stay at the hospital. They work independently and are placed reliance in making decisions and settlements concerning patient care for their knowledge, supervision, and observations by the doctors. Nurses play an important role in our society and in our lives which is why we should value them. Since the controversial issue of nurses shortage is still increasing, we unknowingly neglect their necessities and obligate them to work overtime. Nurses working for an extended time is unfavorable and causes numerous negative impacts.
Why has there been involuntary overtime with nurses?
Hospitals are invariably one of the busiest places considering inpatients, outpatients, and emergency cases. This is why shortage in nurses has been an issue throughout the years and up until today, the demand for nurses is the highest it is ever been. Nursing is one of the fastest-growing occupations.
According to Nursing shortage statistics, it is estimated that there will a need for 3.44 million nurses in the United States by 2022. However, while the demand for nurses is increasing, the population of nurses is decreasing. This shortage led to nurses being required to work for extended hours and excessively. A standard shift in many hospitals offer eight to twelve hour shifts however nurses fill in shortfalls resulting them to work involuntarily for 16 hours or more. However, nurses should not be required to work overtime because it will put both nurses and patients’ health at risk.
What are the negative consequences of working overtime for nurses?
Nurses working longer than they are supposed to increases the risk of poor performance on the job and blackouts because they are unable to acquire sufficient rest and sleep. People are normally required to obtain seven to nine hours of sleep and without this sleep duration at night, it may result to nurses suffering from short and long term consequences.
Short term include:
- Sleepiness
- Stress
- Depression
- Fatigue
- Impairs mental function
- Impairs judgements and reasoning
- Impairs attention, alertness, and concentration
- Affects mood
- Inability to learn
- Inability to retain information
Long term include:
- High blood pressure
- Obesity (weight gain)
- Diabetes
- Weak immunity
- Cardiovascular disease
- Other diseases
In an article, published in 2012 by Amy Witkoski Stimpfel, “The Longer The Shifts For Hospital Nurse, The Higher The Levels Of Burnout and Patient Dissatisfaction”, It was substantiated that hospital nurses being obligated to work for extended shifts argues that it results to insufficiency and put both nurses and patients’ health at risk. She demonstrated that there has been a physical and mental collapse within nurses by overwork, exhaustion, and stress.
What are the negative consequences of working overtime for patients?
With the lack of proper and sufficient sleep, nurses experience these negative impacts which endangers patient’s health. Since it impairs nurses mental function, it leads to dangerous situation such as nurses falling asleep involuntarily during critical times, specifically during patient care. Insufficient sleep affects the quality of care they provide to patients. It results to adverse events and errors such as:
- Patient falls with injury
- Receiving wrong medication or dose
- Medical miscalculations
- Neglection of hospital protocols
- Neglection of patients
In an article published in 2104, by Claire Caruso, “Negative Impacts of Shiftwork and Long Work Hours”, Caruso discusses that being deprived from sleep can result nurses the inability to accommodate with emotional demands of patients and the inability to respond to patient care and needs. Subsequent to the impaired mental function of nurses from working for extended hours, it endangers patients health as well. They experience exhaustion, they are less alert and uncontrollably vague. Deprivation of sleep can lead to threatening situations if a nurse falls asleep involuntarily during precarious moments due to brain experiencing compulsion, outstandingly during patient care.
The obligatory to work for extended hours result to job dissatisfaction and turnovers for nurses. Instead of being an alternative and solution to the shortage of nurses problem, it may worsen the dilemma. Nurses may desire to leave the workforce because they are dissatisfied with their jobs from working excessively that resulted them to face negative consequences.
Although numerous hospitals suffer from the shortage of nurses, nurses should not be required to work overtime and be forced to involuntary work excessively because it results to worse problems than it is being the solution to the problem. Obligating nurses to work for extended hours does more harm, putting lives of both patients and nurses in danger and is not worth taking as an alternative. The widespread negative impacts of working overtime must be recognized and rectified. As a solution to reduce these risks hospitals should organize and balance shift hours that is according to what is appropriate. The countless of nursing candidates that are enthusiastic in working for health care and hiring travel nurses can be solutions to this problem.
Work Cited:
Caruso, Claire C. “Negative Impacts of Shiftwork and Long Work Hours.” Rehabilitation nursing : the official journal of the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4629843/.
Masterson, Les. “Nurses are burnt out. Here’s how hospitals can help.” Healthcare Dive, 12 May 2017, www.healthcaredive.com/news/nurses-are-burnt-out-heres-how-hospitals-can-help/ 442640/.
Olds, Danielle M., and Sean P. Clarke. “The Effect of Work Hours on Adverse Events and Errors in Health Care.” Journal of safety research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910393/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2017.
Stimpfel, Amy Witkoski, et al. “The Longer The Shifts For Hospital Nurses, The Higher The Levels Of Burnout And Patient Dissatisfaction.” Health affairs (Project Hope), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC3608421/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2017.
