[The intensity of nurses' night shift in medical wards: an observational study on patients' calls]

It is recognised that the night shift is a difficult one but only scarce data are available on what happens during the night.

The aim of this paper is to describe the reasons of patients' calls during the nights and the number of problems that require the intervention of the doctor on night duty.

Data were collected by a non participant observer, in 4 general medical wards during a convenience sample of 12 nights. For each call, a form was completed reporting hour, patients characteristics and reasons for call.

During the nights 483 calls were observed; on average 40.2 for each night and 4 for each of the 115 patients who made a call. On average each nurse did answer 18 calls. The 40.4% (205/483) occurred between 21.00 and 23.59 hours; 18.6% had more than one reason (on average 1.2 reasons for each call). The doctor on duty was called for the 3.1% of calls.

The night duty can be very intensive. Situations nurses have to deal with and workload need to be explored to increase patients (and nurses) safety.