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Nurses' Shift Length and Overtime Working in 12 European Countries: The Association With Perceived Quality of Care and Patient Safety.
Med Care. 2014 Sep 15;
Authors: Griffiths P, Dall'Ora C, Simon M, Ball J, Lindqvist R, Rafferty AM, Schoonhoven L, Tishelman C, Aiken LH, For the RN4CAST Consortium
Abstract
BACKGROUND:: Despite concerns as to whether nurses can perform reliably and effectively when working longer shifts, a pattern of two 12- to 13-hour shifts per day is becoming common in many hospitals to reduce shift to shift handovers, staffing overlap, and hence costs.
OBJECTIVES:: To describe shift patterns of European nurses and investigate whether shift length and working beyond contracted hours (overtime) is associated with nurse-reported care quality, safety, and care left undone.
METHODS:: Cross-sectional survey of 31,627 registered nurses in general medical/surgical units within 488 hospitals across 12 European countries.
RESULTS:: A total of 50% of nurses worked shifts of ≤8 hours, but 15% worked ≥12 hours. Typical shift length varied between countries and within some countries. Nurses working for ≥12 hours were more likely to report poor or failing patient safety [odds ratio (OR)=1.41; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.13-1.76], poor/fair quality of care (OR=1.30; 95% CI, 1.10-1.53), and more care activities left undone (RR=1.13; 95% CI, 1.09-1.16). Working overtime was also associated with reports of poor or failing patient safety (OR=1.67; 95% CI, 1.51-1.86), poor/fair quality of care (OR=1.32; 95% CI, 1.23-1.42), and more care left undone (RR=1.29; 95% CI, 1.27-1.31).
CONCLUSIONS:: European registered nurses working shifts of ≥12 hours and those working overtime report lower quality and safety and more care left undone. Policies to adopt a 12-hour nursing shift pattern should proceed with caution. Use of overtime working to mitigate staffing shortages or increase flexibility may also incur additional risk to quality.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License, where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0.
PMID: 25226543 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]