Potential dangers of nursing overtime in critical care

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Access Instruction 131.pdf (105.15 KB)

Date

2018-09-01

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Volume Title

Publisher

NLM (Medline)

Abstract

Around the world, registered nurses are working increasing amounts of overtime. This is particularly true in critical care environments, which experience unpredictable fluctuations in patient volume and acuity combined with a need for greater numbers of specialized nurses. Although it is commonplace, little consensus exists surrounding the effects of overtime on nursing sick time and patient outcomes. Using data from 11 different critical care units nestled within three major academic health science centres in Southern Ontario, a multilevel-model Poisson regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between nursing overtime and nursing sick time, patient mortality and patient infection incidents. Most significantly, for every 10 hours of nursing overtime worked, study findings revealed an associated 3.3-hour increase in nursing sick time. Because of the potential cost and patient care ramifications, hospitals and nurse managers are encouraged to track collective and individual paid and unpaid hours to impose appropriate limits and ensure accountability. Further qualitative research should be commissioned to explore the underlying reasons for these findings and diversify the settings and, in turn, wider application. Copyright © 2018 Longwoods Publishing.

Description

This article is not available at CUD collection. The version of scholarly record of this Article is published in Nursing Leadership (Toronto, Ont.) (2018), available online at: https://doi.org/10.12927/cjnl.2018.25677.

Keywords

Adverse event, Health status, Hospital mortality, Human, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Organization and management, Personnel management, Procedures, Psychology, Qualitative research, Shift schedule, Time factor, Workload, Critical care, Health status, Hospital mortality, Shift Work Schedule, Time Factors

Citation

D’Sa, V. M., Ploeg, J., Fisher, A., Akhtar-Danesh, N., & Peachey, G. (2018). Potential dangers of nursing overtime in critical care. Nursing Leadership (Toronto, Ont.), 31(3), 48–60. https://doi.org/10.12927/cjnl.2018.25677

URI

http://dx.doi.org/10.12927/cjnl.2018.25677
 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12519/131

DOI

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Department of Environmental Health Sciences