Views on Nurse Fatigue: Description

Nurse Fatigue Name Institution Nurse Fatigue In the recent past, nurse fatigue has become a cause for concern in the nursing practice. In fact, a lot of research has been done to explore the causes, effects, and solutions to nurse fatigue. According to Ulrich (2018, p.239), nurse fatigue does not only endanger the safety and health of the nurse but also that of the patients. The purpose of this paper is to deeply explore and analyze nurse fatigue to facilitate a better understanding of the issue and its implication on nursing practice. In addition, this paper will explore ways in which nurses can prevent or reduce nurse fatigue. Description Nurse fatigue can be defined as the physical, emotional and mental tiredness experienced by nurses because of the high demand and pressure of the job (Wong, 2017, p.40). Nursing as a career requires a lot of dedication especially due to the long hours required on the job. Working for long hours, coupled with other personal responsibilities, reduces the number of sleeping hours for nurses. In addition, nurses have been forced to work long shifts with limited recovery times in between shifts due to the widespread shortage of nurses (Wong, 2017, p.40). These are some of the factors that made nurse fatigue an interesting topic for me because I want to find out how I can deal with these issues in my practice. In addition, I have always thought that these issues are normal in the nursing practice and I should just accept the situation. Thus, finding out that there are solutions to them is actually refreshing. Views on Nurse Fatigue Nurse fatigue has been attributed to a number of issues in patient care. One thing I have always known is that nurses have left the profession completely due to the high demands of the profession, and the solution to this challenge is ensuring that nurses get adequate rest. This has been confirmed by Chovanak (2017, p.4), who indicate that hospitals and other healthcare organizations can save costs incurred in hiring new nurses by reducing nurse fatigue. This will ensure that nurses who are more experienced are retained in hospitals. Other benefits of reducing nurse fatigue include improved patient outcome and satisfaction. According to Chovanak (2017, p.6), nurse fatigue affects patient outcomes and ultimately, patient satisfaction because the quality of care provided is low. Fatigued nurses are prone to drug administration errors, poor decision-making, and poor relationships with their patients (Celik, Tasdemir, Kurt, Ilgezdi, & Kubalas, 2017, p.200). However, this can be addressed by utilizing the available solutions, such as the ones recommended by (American Nurses Association (ANA), 2014. p.4). They include sleeping for a minimum of 7 hours for every 24 hours, taking a rest before the start of a shift, and taking breaks during a shift, among others. However, these recommendations are known to many nurses, yet the demands of the job usually don’t allow them to implement them. One interesting thing I have learned about nurse fatigue through research is that nurses working in rotating shifts are more prone to nurse fatigue (Celik, et al., 2017, p.204). This information is essential in mitigating nurse fatigue because hospital management can come up with better schedules than rotating shifts. However, surprisingly, not many senior level management in hospitals are aware of nurse fatigues and most of them lack the necessary information on the issue, mostly because of the shared belief that nurse fatigue is a normal part of nursing (Steege, Pinekenstein, Rainbow, & Knudsen, 2017, p.487). This definitely affects the approach and measure that hospitals have put in place to reduce nurse fatigue. Creating awareness of nurse fatigue, especially to hospital management is, therefore, the first step towards properly addressing the issue. Significance and Relevance The issue of nurse fatigue is of great importance because nursing is about patient care. However, it is problematic when nurses are putting patients’ safety at risk because of nurse fatigue. This raises a number of professional, ethical and legal issues. Professionally, nurses are expected to be responsible for their individual actions and increase patient care (ANA, 2014. P.7). As such, new graduates and nurses, in general, should take the necessary steps to ensure that they reduce nurse fatigue. This is especially important given the ramifications of nurse fatigue on patient care. In addition, nurse fatigue also poses a threat to nursing as a profession. For instance, as revealed by Chovanak (2017, p.4), nurse fatigue causes high nurse turnover where nurses either leave their place of work or leave the profession completely. With the increasing shortage of nurses, this high turnover should be a cause of concern for nurse leaders and administrators. T...