Research proposal on Sleep Deprivation among Nurse Practitioners due to Long Work Shifts

Eating well and staying hydrated at all times is life’s biological need. Similarly, science has proven that adequate sleep is equally crucial for the maintenance of life (Everson, 2009). One is able to work safely and stay healthy if spared 7-8 hours of sleep everyday. The stated sleep duration is indispensable for the reduced risks of injuries, cerebral vascular accidents, myocardial infarction, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and errors (Colten & Altevogt, 2006).

Nursing is a profession that requires the practitioners to work long shifts. However, in most cases, nurses are required to work extended or consecutive shifts. This is likely to result in exhaustion making the nurse practitioners vulnerable to committing medical mistakes. Stimpfel, Sloane and Aiken found that the levels of patient dissatisfaction and burnout are greater when nurses at the hospital work longer shifts. This is an emerging issue particularly because nurses seem to now have been working shifts exceeding about 13 hours (2012).

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A sleep-deprived nurse is likely to pose risks to those around them, especially the patients. Staff nurses, nurse managers and employers, all play an equal role in adopting effective strategies to enable the mitigation of these risks. The primary strategy that is likely to result in the reduction of risks associated with working long shifts and not getting enough sleep is prioritizing sleep while developing nurses’ work schedules.

In order to deal with this emerging problem within this specialty, the health ministry must organize education and training programs for the employers and staff nurses. These education and training programs must enable the nurse practitioners to appreciate the demands of extended working shifts, and effective strategies to tackle their sleep and other related exhaustion problems.

A solution-focused approach for employers and managers revolve around their efforts in improving the work schedules. This may call for allowing frequent breaks to the nurse practitioners during their shifts. Such strategy may also foster healthy supervisor and co-worker relationships. Besides, such solution shall also establish systems and policies at both, local and service levels that reduce the risks associated with health problems revolving around sleep deprivation.

Upon the implementation of this approach, workplaces may also periodically assess the influence of updated work schedules of nurse practitioners on factors such as illnesses, near misses, worker errors, unintentional injury, sleep, alertness, performance and other on- and off-the-job responsibilities to see if there are any improvements.

Good-quality sleep is rather important for both, nurses and their patients. Being able to work safely and maintaining a healthy lifestyle not only comes with eating and drinking, but also sleeping well. The solution-focused approach discussed in this essay will result in safety outcome and improved health. In addition, this approach shall also help improve or restore the disturbed mental functionality of nurse practitioners due to long work shifts (Geiger-Brown, Rogers, Trinkoff, Kane, Bausell, & Scharf, 2012). Besides, nurses’ immunologic functions shall improve, and there will be lower rates of cancer, mood disturbances, heart diseases, and depression.

Bibliography

Colten, H., & Altevogt, B. (2006). Sleep disorders and sleep deprivation an unmet public health problem. Washington: National Academies.

Everson, C. (2009). Comparative research approaches to discovering the biomedical implications of sleep loss and sleep recovery. Westchester: Sleep Research Society.

Geiger-Brown, J., Rogers, V., Trinkoff, A., Kane, R., Bausell, R., & Scharf, S. (2012). Sleep, sleepiness, fatigue, and performance of 12-hour-shift nurses. Chronobiology International , 29 (2), 211–219.

Stimpfel, A., Sloane, D., & Aiken, L. (2012). The longer the shifts for hospital nurses, the higher the levels of burnout and patient dissatisfaction. Health Affairs , 31, 2501–2509.