A computer-aided comparative study of progressive alertness changes in nurses working two different night-shift rotas.
Two groups of nurses were investigated during the course of two different types of night-shift rota. The purpose was to define, if possible, the optimum shift pattern for hospital night staff. The mental alertness of two groups of nurses was assessed, both subjectively and objectively, at the beginn...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Advanced Nursing (Wiley-Blackwell) Vol. 23; no. 6; pp. 1247 - 1254 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jun96
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=107377165&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 107377165 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 03092402 4BG jtl: Journal of Advanced Nursing (Wiley-Blackwell) issn: 03092402 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jun96 vid: 23 iid: 6 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell place: Malden, Massachusetts artinfo: ui: 107377165 107377165 8554788 8554788 10.1046/j.1365-2648.1996.13024.x NLM8796475 107377165 ppf: 1247 ppct: 7 formats: tig: atl: A computer-aided comparative study of progressive alertness changes in nurses working two different night-shift rotas. aug: au: Dingley J sug: subj: Shift Workers Personnel Staffing and Scheduling Mental Status Comparative Studies Visual Analog Scaling Reaction Time Analysis of Variance Software T-Tests Circadian Rhythm Convenience Sample Descriptive Statistics Female Human Female ab: Two groups of nurses were investigated during the course of two different types of night-shift rota. The purpose was to define, if possible, the optimum shift pattern for hospital night staff. The mental alertness of two groups of nurses was assessed, both subjectively and objectively, at the beginning and end of each night-shift of a set of nights being worked. Alertness was assessed subjectively by means of a visual analogue scale, and objectively by means of a computer generated test, the unprepared simple reaction time task. One group worked permanent nights and the other rapidly rotating nights. Subjectively the nurses felt they were more alert at the beginning than at the end of a night-shift, and also at the beginning of a span of nights than at the end. With computer testing, performance was broadly worse at the beginning of a shift than at the end. It was worse at the beginning of a span of nights, improving to a peak at around the fourth day, and then in the case of permanent nights, remaining about the same or deteriorating slightly towards the end of the span. The improvement by day 4 could be a practice effect or it may be that it takes this long to adjust to the new pattern of working as some authors have described. Debate centres around whether nurses should cease working nights just as they have become accustomed to them as in the rapid rotation, or continue for longer to gain benefit from this acclimatization as in permanent nights. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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