Sleep Loss, Sleepiness and Fatigue in 12-Hour Nurses.

摘要

Sustained work days (shifts lasting 12 hours or more) have become common in nursing, especially in combination with compressed schedules (e.g. three 12-hour days in succession). This work schedule limits the opportunity for sleep, and can lead to fatigue-related accidents, injuries, and long-term adverse health effects. Because neurocognitive performance changes are an early indicator of fatigue, they are useful for exploring the impact of sustained workdays on nurses. The proposed study examined sleep, sleepiness, fatigue, and neurocognitive performance over three successive sustained workdays among critical care nurses working in hospitals. The aims of the study were to: (1) describe the number of hours of sleep that nurses actually achieve over successive sustained workdays, (2) measure sleepiness, fatigue, and changes in neurocognitive performance over these workdays, and (3) describe the relationship between achieved sleep and fatigue, sleepiness and neurocognition.