Night Shift And Its Impact Upon The Quality Of Life Of Nurses and Midwives

This study was carried out to examine night shift and it’s impact on the quality of life of nurses and midwives in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Ihiala, Anambra State. The study was specifically carried out to examine determine the impact of night shift on the physical and mental health of nurses and midwives, determine whether night shift generates higher level of stress and fatigue thereby affecting nurses and midwives’ quality of life, determine whether night shift affects the quality of family relationship of nurses and midwives, and determine whether night shift affects the social life of nurses and midwives. The survey design was adopted and the simple random sampling techniques were employed in this study. The population size comprise of nurses and midwives in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. In determining the sample size, the researcher conveniently selected 57 respondents and 50 were validated. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The collected and validated questionnaires were analyzed using frequency tables, and mean scores. While the hypotheses were tested using Pearson correlation statistical tool, SPSS v23. The result of the findings reveals that night shift has a negative impact on the quality of life of nurses and midwives in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. The study also revealed that night shift generates higher level of stress and fatigue thereby affecting nurses and midwives’ quality of life. Therefore, it is recommended that it should provide adequate off-duty hours to let an uninterrupted sleep cycle of at least 8 h a day, which may affect nurses and midwives’ daily life at home. It should use permanent shift assignments, which may diminish tiredness effects, instead of rotating shift duties. To mention but a few.