Group Research Poster Presentation
Transcript: Overview: Based on this study and its conclusive inferences, it is imperative to nurses and future researcher to know of its conclusive data relating to MSD as well as symptoms leading to its disorders in nurses. Future implications of this data is not only impactful to future research but can also alert nurses to warning signs and symptoms related to MSD, as defined in this research study. It also implicates the severity of the consequential effects of MSD on nursing practice (physically), such as fatigue, effectiveness, and time off due to health related problems. Unfortunately, there have not been many research studies dedicated to analyzing nurse work hours and patterns and their relation to errors. There are many variables that can affect the decrease in patient care. Many of the mentioned factors include increased work intensity, increased workload, increased rate of absenteeism, and the high rate of sick days. It was established the age, experience, the type of unit, and the hospital size were not significant factors in affecting the level of job dissatisfaction of the nurses who worked 12 hour shifts compared to nurses who worked 8 hour shifts. Studies in the future can be done to isolate what variables are the most important in determining the increase or decrease of job satisfaction. What needs to confirmed is being advocated by the IOM report which is “safer patient care is more likely to result from changes in the environment in which healthcare is provided than from blaming health care professionals, who may be providing the best care possible under poor circumstances.” If this is the case, it needs to be determined what aspect of the administration or environment needs to be altered if indeed it is the change in shift hours from 12 back to 8 hour shifts or if it is a staffing issue or an issue that has not been brought up to affect patient care. Also, to address whether it is the long hours that is affecting the quality of patient care, there can be a method that compares the first 6 hours in a shift to the last 6 hours in a shift. Since there isn’t much literature on the effect of long hours on patient care, there is still much that needs to be researched. Strengths and weaknesses: Since overall, errors are relatively rare in the hospital, it is hard to judge whether or not long hours affect the nurse’s use of safety. This study did show leads to increased errors in providing adequate health care, but one cannot fully judge consistent data that correlates with increased errors with nurses working long hours which include overtime and not enough breaks. There may be other causative factors in errors in the medical field that were not accounted for. This study includes some factors such as sleep deprivation, mood, and caffeine intake as contributing factors for errors, but there is no way to fully prove how all of these items and long hours correlates with medical errors just from a subjective log book. The use of logbooks cannot also be indefinitely accurate in this study. Although the use of anonymity of documenting in these journals increased the report of errors in the study by 15% daily, the journals are also subject to subjectivity. There is always still room for a health care providers to not report every error that they make throughout the day. The use of the log book relies solely on the nurse to report his or her own errors, this cannot be determined as completely accurate data, because the nurse can choose what he or she would like to document. This study could have used more hospitals in small towns. Hospitals in small towns may not have enough resources to hire a lot of nurses or purchase supplies, and therefore these nurses could be working longer hours as well as those in city settings. This study could have also been more accurate with a diverse group of nurses culturally. 92% of the nurses were Caucasian female, and this is usually not the case in many hospitals. Generally from experience, a nursing floor is not composed 92% of Caucasian females. This study could have explored different cultural differences as well, rather than just focusing on this population. CNE - Nursing Overtime: Why, How much, and Under What Working Conditions? Overview: Ann E. Rogers, wei-Ting Hwang, Linda D. Scott, Linda H. Aiken, David F Dinges, (2004). The working hours of hospital staff Nurses and patient safety. Health affairs. 23 Allison M. Tinkoff, Jane A. Lipscomb, Jeanne Geiger-Brown, Barbara Brady, (2002). Musculoskeletal problems of the Neck, shoulder, and Back and functional consequences in Nurses. American Journal of Industrial medicine. pp.171-177 Sung-Heui Bae, (2012). Nursing Overtime: Why, How much, and under what working conditions. Nursing Economic$(CNE series). 30 pp.60-71 Group Research Poster Presentation Discussion of research finding and implications for subsequent research and practice: This article was relevant to clinical practice of nursing by investigating the prevalence of