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Working at night could cause a lot of health problems. However, not many people seem to assume the negative effects of night shift, especially the health workers. Even after working all night, rarely do the workers get enough sleep. In this article, we are going to focus on how the night shift affects the medical staff.
The authors focus on the results of sleep disorders related to work shift and how that can be overcome. They insist that wrong sleeping patterns could interfere with a person’s health and emphasize that prevention programs should be implemented to save the situation. This is especially evident in developed countries where around 20% of workers do their shifts at night. The findings show that younger people find it difficult to work at night since it affects their social interactions. In addition, proper body fitness and sleeping hygiene reduces the negative effects of working at night. The authors used observation and interviewing methods to gather data. Some of the outcomes included: in the study which considered about 895 nurses, almost 67% of them slept while driving, hence, they were likely to cause accidents. Night shift workers are also likely to get more sleeping disorder problems as observed in Italy. Napping between shifts for nurses also proved to give better performance. The article has brought to my understanding that dizziness, exhaustion, irritability, accidents frequency, lack of presence at work and poor reaction to tasks are likely to be experienced due to little sleep. As a future health professional I will ensure I sleep enough to avoid offering poor services to patients.
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The European heart journal on the other hand insisted that heart problems are likely to be encountered due to night shifts. The authors observed that there were increased coronary heart diseases among night shift workers, especially if they had worked for more than six years .The outcomes of the Study hinted a raise of the metabolic syndrome in those who worked in shifts. A study done on young Finns also showed connection between shift work and carotid intima-media thickness. Doctors who are called for duty suffered distracted sleep and excess workload, which is a cause of death especially in elderly people. Workers who slept less than six hours were more likely to die of cancer and hypertension. An intended study showed that workers who worked in shifts smoked more than workers who worked during the day. Questionnaire and observation were used to gather data. Findings showed that frequent sleep distractions resulted in heart complications. Increased blood pressure, stress and faulty heart rate irregularity were likely to be experienced in shift workers. The article made me understand sleeping short hours due to on call duties caused a rise in blood pressure, and immature heart beats in the initial hours of the morning. In the future, I will avoid sleep disturbances in order not to make medical errors at work.
The British Medical Journal’s target was to show the connection between vascular diseases and night shifts. Outcomes from this study indicated that there was an increase in myocardial infarction, coronary event and ischaemic stroke in people who worked night shifts which were risk factors. The study continued to indicate that there was no heart failure or hemorrhagic stroke experienced. Observation and interviewing were used by the authors to gather information. The findings were similar to The European heart journal rates, which stated that metabolic syndrome, diabetes, rise in blood pressure, impair variability of heart rate, dyslipidaemia and hypertension were common in night shift workers. From this article I understand that working in shifts could increase one’s chances of getting vascular diseases and as a future health professional I plan to avoid frequent night shifts to prevent myself from getting heart diseases.
Conclusion
It is clear from the three articles that health professional is at risk because it is impossible not to work at night since people get sick any time. However, mechanisms should be introduced to amend the unfavorable effects of working at night. This way, their health will be less endangered.
Self assessment
Completing this task was a challenge since I did not have enough information to include in my article. To add to that, I had not read the instructions properly and had to re-do the task again. Next time I will ensure I get enough resources and read the instructions before I start working on the assignment.