NIGHT WORK IN THE LIFE OF NURSES

Abstract

The night shift in the health care sector is a way to organize the service in order to meet the population's demand for health services and to provide uninterrupted care. The general objective of this study is to analyze the repercussions of night work on nurses' lives. This type of work has a direct impact on the life quality of these professionals. This study is an integrative review of the literature, through the survey of 17 other studies published between 2010 and 2016, in journals indexed in the national databases. The data were analyzed according to the Content Analysis proposed by Bardin, thereby three categories emerged: (01) overall health implications of the night shift; (02) difficulties regarding organization and (03) repercussions in familiar life as opposed to the positive aspects of the night shift. The results show that shift work, especially at night, can change some of the organic functions in individuals by altering the rhythm of the human body. One of the negative aspects related to the night work developed by nurses is that those workers suffer isolation when it comes to intercommunicate with other sectors, which do not work on shift schedule.  The night shift nurse suffers from difficulty in maintaining social interaction due to the implications of the work schedule, associated to constant somnolence and irritability. On the other hand, it was identified that when working at night, these professionals have schedule flexibility, which makes possible a double employment relationship. Therefore, it can be concluded that it is fundamental to promote better working conditions to nurses that work in night shifts.