Twelve-Hour Shifts Are Problematic for Patient and Nurse Safety, Yet

question 14

Essay

Twelve-hour shifts are problematic for patient and nurse safety, yet hospitals continue to keep the 12-hour shift schedule. In 2004, the Institute of Medicine (Board on Health Care Services & Institute of Medicine, 2004) published a report that referred to studies as early as 1988 that discussed the negative effects of rotating shifts on intervention accuracy. Workers with 12-hour shifts experienced more fatigue than workers on 8-hour shifts. In another study done in Turkey by Ilhan, Durukan, Aras, Turkcuoglu, and Aygun (2006), factors relating to increased risk for injury were age of 24 years or younger, less than 4 years of nursing experience, working in surgical intensive care units, and working for more than 8 hours. As a clinician reading these studies, what would your next step be?

Understand the concept and calculation of float in project schedules.

Identify the characteristics and identifiers of project activities.

Describe different types of project schedules and their applications.

Understand the basic structure and function of the alimentary canal and accessory digestive organs.

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Definitions:

Sample Correlation Coefficient

A statistical measure that calculates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two quantitative variables in a sample.

Dependent Variable

The variable in an experiment or study that is affected by changes in the independent variable, and which researchers aim to measure or predict.

Independent Variable

A variable in an experiment or study that is manipulated or categorized to observe its effect on a dependent variable.

Coefficient Of Correlation

A measure that calculates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables, represented as 'r'.