Alertness during working hours among eight-hour rotating-shift nurses: An observational study

Area of Science:

• Nursing Science
• Occupational Health
• Sleep Medicine

Background:

• Rotating shift work is common in nursing, posing risks to worker alertness and patient safety.
• Objective measurement of alertness decline in nurses across different shifts is crucial for developing effective interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and analyze the patterns of alertness decline in rotating-shift nurses during work hours.
• To compare alertness levels across day, evening, and night shifts using objective data.

Main Methods:

• An observational study involving 82 rotating-shift nurses in South Korea.
• Continuous monitoring of sleep-wake cycles and hourly alertness prediction using ReadiBand wrist actigraphs for 14 days.
• Correlation of objective alertness data with subjective sleep diary entries.

Main Results:

• Nurses working night shifts exhibited the lowest average alertness scores (77.12) compared to day (79.05) and evening (91.21) shifts.
• A general declining trend in alertness was observed across all shifts, with distinct patterns specific to each shift type.
• Alertness scores below 70 or 80 indicated a significant decline, regardless of the shift.

Conclusions:

• Distinct patterns of alertness decline exist for each nursing shift, necessitating shift-specific interventions.
• Developing interventions to enhance nurse alertness is critical for improving care quality and patient safety.
• Organizational-level interventions, supported by nursing management, are required to address alertness issues in shift nurses.