Working hours and health in nurses of public hospitals according to gender

Abstract

OBJECTIVETo assess the association between weekly working hours and self-rated health of nurses in public hospitals in Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.METHODSA total of 3,229 nurses (82.7% of the eligible group) participated in this cross-sectional study, carried out between April 2010 and December 2011. The collection instrument consisted of a self-administered multidimensional questionnaire. The weekly working hours were calculated from a recall of the daily hours worked over seven consecutive days; this variable was categorized according to tertiles of distribution for men and women. The outcome of interest, self-rated health, was categorized into three levels: good (very good and good), regular, and poor (poor and very poor). The statistical analysis of the data included bivariate and multivariate analyses, having as reference group those with short working hours (first tertile). All the analyses were stratified by gender and elaborated using the program SPSS.RESULTSAmong women, the group corresponding to the longest working week (more than 60.5 hours per week) were more likely to report regular self-rated health, compared with those with shorter working hours, after adjusting for confounding factors (OR = 1.30; 95%CI 1.02–1.67). Among men, those with average working hours (49.5–70.5 hours per week) were more than twice as likely to rate their health as regular (OR = 2.17; 95%CI 1.08–4.35) compared to those with shorter working hours (up to 49.5 hours). There was no significant association between long working hours and poor self-rated health.CONCLUSIONSThe results point to the urgent need to promote interventions in the organization of work and appreciation of the nursing profession, in order to reduce the number of multiple jobs and thus contribute to mitigate potential effects on the health of workers and the quality of care in hospitals.

Burnout Syndrome and shift work among the nursing staff

“…It is possible this is a way to benefit older workers who have worked longer in the facility, because the night shift has fewer demands compared to the day shift and higher salaries 4 . Even though there is some indication that recently graduated young and single workers with fewer years of experience 24 work on the night shift, recent studies report results similar to this study 2 , 25 .…”

Factors related to the risk of illness of nursing staff at work in a psychiatric institution

“…Although this investigation did not find a significant difference in the odds ratio between the different working days, the study showed higher prevalence of illness among workers with long working hours (26) . The illness resulting from long working days can be explained by the reduction of free time -for sleep and recovery, family and social experience in addition to the longer exposure time to the risks of illness limited to the work environment (27) . This aspect was reported by nurses in qualitative research, when they attributed the illness to work overload and lack of time for self-care (28) .…”

Interactionist view of circumstances that interfere with nurses' lifestyle

“…Thus, in order to assure their place in the contemporary world, nurses need to work harder, which harms their lifestyle both in professional and social spheres, and makes the achievement of personal desires difficult. By working exhaustively, there is no time for leisure, social relationships, varied activities, and especially for self-care (physical or mental) (14) .…”