Many nurses prefer 12-hour shifts, but what is it doing to their bodies? Dall’Ora, Ball, Recio-Saucedo and Griffiths (2016) studied the association of nurses’ shift characteristics with sickness absence. It has been believed that the hours of nurses’ shifts can affect nurses’ wellbeing (Dall’Ora et al, 2016). Dall’Ora et al (2016) mentioned that previous studies have relied on self-reported data and that shift characteristics and how they impact nurses’ health and wellbeing have never been studied before now. This purpose of this study was to investigate the association of shift work characteristics in acute hospitals and nurses’ sickness absence (Dall’Ora et al, 2016). Dall’Ora et al (2016) used the sickness absence as an indicator of wellbeing. …show more content…
This was a retrospective observational study using data collected on nurses’ shift patterns and sickness absence (Dall’Ora et al, 2016). They used a data source called the Electronic Rostering system which was linked to payroll, and another system called bank shifts dataset. With these they were able to see what shifts the nurses worked in the hospital, their hours worked, shift dates, start time and end time, and missed shifts due to sickness (Dall’Ora et al, 2016). To analyze the data, Dall’Ora et al (2016) calculated for the 7 days prior to a sickness episode the number of long shifts, number of night shifts, number of day shifts, number of worked shifts, and total number of hours worked. They found that there were 8,066 sickness episodes, and 345 staff members never called in sick, and nurses that recently worked 12-hour shifts were more likely to have a sickness absence than those who had worked no 12-hour shifts (Dall’Ora et al, 2016). While 12-hour shifts are preferred, this study shows that it could decrease the nurses’ wellbeing. There are also consequences for patients when nurses are gone, such as their shifts being covered by agency nurses who are not used to working on that floor or at that