Impact of Prolonged working hours, work stress and fatigue among Nurses

Abstract

Job stress can endanger the physical and mental health of nurses, decrease energy and work efficiency, and fail to provide proper nursing care, which ultimately has a negative impact on patient outcomes. Therefore, it is required to investigate the stressors and effective planning to eliminate these factors. Fatigue can impair the ability to think clearly, make sound judgments and act decisively. While it is the nurse's and employer's responsibility to find the right balance between work and time off, only the nurse can determine her or his tolerance level for stress, anxiety and fatigue. Prolonged and Extended working hours and those periods without rest can seriously impair cognitive and motor performance at work, decrease alertness and productivity and increase risk of adverse events and outcomes such as tiredness, fatigue, poor performance, and safety and health care errors. A study conducted across many countries has revealed that chronic psychosocial work stressors such as low job control (low skill discretion and low decision authority), high level of psychological job demands, lack of supervisor and co-worker support at work, bullying or harassment at work, a lack of social interactions with co-workers, job insecurity, and long working hours per week, etc. cause severe adverse effects on both physical and psychological health of the workers, which sometimes even could lead to suicidal ideation in the workers.