الفهرس 
Shift Work
Individual DifferencesOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
Abstract
Shift work involves work hours that most people consider
unconventional and demanding (e.g., working during the
night or starting work very early in the morning) so shift-work
can have many physical, psychological, and social effects on
the worker. The problems occur from working in opposition
to the body‘s normal circadian sleep-wake schedule. Along
with physical health problems, shift-work may lead to poorer
health habits such as increased consumption of tobacco and
reduced physical activity. Tobacco use and reduced activity
are often linked with depression. The working in a
combination of day and night shifts affected workers by
causing fatigue, sleepiness, lethargy, insomnia, digestive
problems, depression and anxiety.
Aim of the Work:
This study aimed to assess the effect of shiftwork on
physical and psychological health of nursing staff.
Subjects and methods:
Research design:
Descriptive design was conducted for this study.
Setting:
The present study was conducted at Ain Shams Specialized
Hospital affiliated to Ain Shams University Hospitals Sample size and characteristics
The sample composed of 100 nursing staff under the
criteria of:
Sex : Female nurses.
Age : 30-50 years old.
Experience : having at least one year experience and
engaged in shiftwork.
The actual field work was carried out from December
(2014) up to February (2015). The researcher was available in
the study setting two days per week (Wednesday & Thursday)
divided as follows: during first period (8.00 am to 2.00 pm) to
meet morning shift nurses and during the second period to meet
afternoon shift nurses (2 pm to 8.00) and after 8.00 pm to meet
night shift nurses, the interviewing took 15-20 minutes for each
female nurse.
Tool of data collection:
Data were collected using the following tool:
Interview questionnaire sheet, it was written in simple
Arabic language and it consisted of three parts:
o Part I: Nursing staff sociodemographic data including
age, years of experience, social status and residence.
o Part II: Data collection about description the
procedures of designing the shift work. Part III: Assessment of the effect of shiftwork on the
physical, psychological and cognitive health of
nurses selected. It was developed by the researcher.
The findings of the present study could be summarized as
follows:
Showed that the mean score and standard deviation for
nursing staff experience were 17.2 ± 5.95, the majority
of nursing staff who were engaged in shiftwork were
married. Also, it was found that the highest percentage
of nursing staff had afternoon shift, while the lowest
percentage of them were night shift.
Half of the nursing staff suffer from insomnia mostly
and sometimes had a night without sleep.
There is no relation between psychological stress and
sociodemographic data of nursing staff.
There is no statistically significant difference between
physical stress of the study sample and the mean score
of their sociodemographic data represented in age,
experience and number of children.
In the light of the study findings, it is concluded that
there is no statistical significant difference between physical
stress of the study sample and the mean score of their
sociodemographic data that represented in age, experience and
numbers of children.Slightly more than half of the nursing staff mostly
resists falling asleep during the shift and one third of
them was sometimeshad job strain.
The majority of nursing staff of technical institute
affected by physical stress, also all the nursing staff
who had current night shift affected by physical
stress.
In relation to nurses’ psychological stress of shift work
and their sociodemographic data were no statistically
significant while in relation to procedures used in
designing shift work there was one third of nursing
staff who are night shift mostly affected by
psychological stress.
The following recommendations inferred from the study:
Nursing organization should be fixing the roster for the
nursing staff to improve quality and quantity of their
sleep and also to avoid the work related mistakes.
Counseling unit should be exist in the hospitals to
explain for the nursing staff how to cope with work shift
physical and psychological stress.
Health education to the nursing staff about sleep hygiene
measures which help them to avoid sleep disorders and
obtain a high sleep quality Also it is recommended that more studies are conducted to
analyze the sleep patterns and disturbances among nursing
staff to determine the causes of their sleep problems.
Also it recommended to take into account the cultural
differences between the countries when design the shift
work schedule.