Conceptualizing nurses' night work: an inductive content analysis

AimTo develop a conceptual model of nurse-identified effects of night work. BackgroundStudies designed to predict shift work tolerance are frequently unsuccessful in incorporating the intersections between physiological, psychological and social issues involved in such work. Where nurses have been the participants of such studies they have rarely been involved in ways that would allow their points of view to be heard directly. Consequently, the issues of personal importance to nurses as shift and night workers in 24/7 organizations are rarely identified in discussions about that work. DesignInductive qualitative content analysis. MethodsSurvey responses were provided by 1355 night working RNs employed in a state/public health system in 2012. Data derived from open-ended questions about nurses' own perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of night work are analysed here. ResultsFour main categories providing a descriptive summary of the major elements of nurses' night work were identified: Lives' and Bodies' of night working nurses, the Work' of nurses at night and the nurses' Workplace' at night. ConclusionThe work nurses undertake at night, and the demanding organizational and clinical environments where they do this are uniquely related to the time of day that this work occurs. The Nurses' Night Work model deconstructs the established binary considerations of the lives and bodies of workers to permit a 24/7-based consideration of nurses' night work and its frequently unacknowledged relationship with the day work required of the same nurses when working a rapidly but randomly rotating shift work schedule.