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Background: Little is known about the health and well-being of U.S. correctional nurses. To protect correctional nurses, a better understanding of organizational characteristics, job stress, and well-being must be undertaken. Method: A cross-sectional design was used in the form of an online survey. Correctional nurses were conveniently recruited using national listservs and snowball sampling. Variables were measured with the Health & Safety Executive Management Standards Indicator Tool, Nurse Wellbeing Index, and the Perceived Stress Scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and analyses of variance. Findings: Two hundred seventy participants (142 registered nurses, 83 licensed practical nurses/licensed vocational nurses, and 42 advanced practice nurses) completed the survey. Job stress scored moderate (M = 16.26, SD = 7.14), and well-being levels were just below the risk for adverse events (M = 1.8, SD = 3.06). Lower scores were noted for managerial support (M = 3.13, SD = 0.35) and job demands (M = 3.56, SD = 0.92), but slightly better for job control (M = 3.57, SD = 0.77), peer support (M = 3.85, SD = 0.64), and workplace relationships (M = 3.73, SD = 0.95). Conclusions: Significant differences between organizational characteristics, job stress, and well-being were found across nursing licensure, workplace environments, biological sex, and employment through state or private agencies. Registered nurses working in U.S. prisons experienced the highest job stress and worse well-being. Application to Practice: This work is an essential next step in promoting healthy workspaces, urging the need for further research establishing the impact of organizational characteristics and job stress on nurse well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor sleep quality and duration among health care professionals have negative impacts on worker safety, work readiness, and well-being. However, the consequences of impaired sleep among long-term care (LTC) workers remain understudied. The current integrative review sought to explore associations between sleep and occupational outcomes in LTC workers. Multiple database searches yielded 1,543 articles; nine articles met inclusion criteria. Results synthesized from included articles revealed sleep-associated occupational outcomes across three themes, Burnout/Fatigue, Mental and Physical Health, and Well-Being, which may affect performance measures and predict injuries/errors. Exploring outcomes of poor sleep quality and duration among LTC workers has highlighted the needs of this population and may inform future intervention development. LTC organizations should consider implementing strategies to better support the sleep quality of their workforce. In addition, further research is needed to explore how impaired sleep contributes to negative worker outcomes and patient care quality. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 49(1), 27–33.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: New graduate role transition for nurses and teachers is stressful. Poor adaptation may manifest as insomnia, which has implications for the new professionals, their employers, and the public served. This study examines factors that impact new graduate sleep, with the aim of identifying perceived helps and hindrances to sleep-during-transition. Methods: Targeted content analysis of transcripts from a larger longitudinal mixed methods study comparing new graduate sleep during their first year of practice. Study participants (N = 21) answered questions in the final interview regarding the most positive and negative impact(s) on sleep during the transition year. Transcripts were analyzed and compared based on the new graduate sleep typology (i.e., Got Better, Got Worse, Stayed Varied) which emerged from the parent study. Findings: Most participants, regardless of sleep type, identified a person/group as most positively impacting sleep. They identified work thoughts, stress/anxiety, people, work hours/sleep schedules, and environmental factors as negatively impacting sleep. Work thoughts and stress/anxiety were mentioned together and most frequently by participants in all three sleep types. Conclusion/Applications to Practice: This study provided insight into new graduate nurse and teacher sleep during transition. Support persons and/or groups may be essential regardless of sleep type. Thought management/stress mitigation strategies and good sleep hygiene may also improve the sleep experiences of these new professionals. Occupational health nurses can support sleep-during-transition among new nurses and teachers by acting as sleep advocates. They may also identify a need for medical intervention and/or sleep specialists and should promote fatigue risk mitigating policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The services of Healthcare and Social Assistance (HCSA) workers are needed by society around the clock. As a result, these workers are exposed to shift work and long work hours. The combination of demanding work schedules and other hazards in the HCSA work environment increases the health and safety risks to these workers, as well as to their patients/clients and the public. Methods: This paper has three aims: (1) provide an overview of the burden of shift work, long hours, and related sleep and fatigue problems in this sector; (2) suggest research priorities that would improve these; and (3) discuss potential positive impacts of addressing these research priorities for the health and safety of workers and the public. The authors used a modified Delphi approach to anonymously rank‐order priorities for improving HCSA worker health and safety and public safety. Input was also obtained from attendees at the 2019 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Work Hours, Sleep, and Fatigue Forum. Results: The highest rated research priorities were developing better designs for work schedules, and improving the HCSA culture and leadership approaches to shift work and long work hours. Additional priorities are identified. Conclusion: Research in these priority areas has the potential to benefit HCSA workers as well as their patients/clients, employers, and society. Key Messages: 1.Of all Healthcare and Social Assistance (HCSA) sector workers, 28% have shiftwork schedules, and 17% work 48 hours or more a week to provide vital services around the clock.2.Compared to other sectors, HCSA workers have a significantly higher prevalence of fatigue, job stress, depression, anxiety, burnout, substance abuse, suicide, and nonfatal injuries and illnesses.3.Inadequate sleep quantity is common; 52% of healthcare workers on night shifts report sleeping 6 h or less per day. Sleeping less than 7 hours on a regular basis is associated with numerous adverse health and safety outcomes.4.The highest research priorities are to design better work schedules and to improve the workplace culture and leadership approach to shiftwork, long work hours, and fatigue. Additional research priorities include promoting education for workers and managers, developing fatigue countermeasures, reducing drowsy driving, developing fitness for duty tests, developing technologies to reduce workload and fatigue, and studying individual differences that influence‐workers' health and safety when working shiftwork or long work hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sleep health disturbances can increase risks for workplace injury, error, and poor worker health. Essential workers have reported sleep disturbances since the COVID-19 pandemic onset, which may jeopardize their health and safety. The aims of this project were to assess sleep health among Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) workers, examine potential differences between worker types, and describe the self-perceived impact of COVID-19 on workers' workload and sleep. Methods: Through an academic–practice partnership, this needs assessment used a cross-sectional design that collected self-report data during fall 2020 from CCRC workers. Guided by the Workplace Health Model, survey questions included work characteristics, sleep health, and COVID-19 impact on sleep and workload. Findings: Ninety-four respondents completed the survey across multiple departments. Respondents (n = 34, 36.2%) reported sleeping below recommended hours on workdays. The majority scored above the population mean on Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement (PROMIS) measures of sleep disturbance (n = 52, 55.3%), sleep-related impairment (n = 49, 52.1%), and fatigue (n = 49, 52.1%). Differences in workday total sleep time and fatigue were noted among shift workers versus nonshift workers, with shift workers reporting less sleep and more fatigue. Shorter sleep duration was noted among respondents working shifts 10 or more hours compared with those working 8 hours. Pandemic-related workload increase was reported by 22.3% (n = 21) of respondents, with 17% (n = 16) noting more than one type of workload change. Since COVID-19 onset, 36.2% (n = 34) reported no sleep changes and 35.1% (n = 33) reported sleeping less. A medium, positive relationship was found between increased changes in work due to COVID-19 and increased difficulties sleeping (r =.41, n = 73, p =.000). Conclusion/Application to Practice: Proper sleep health is essential to workplace safety and worker health. By assessing sleep health during a crisis, occupational health nurses can identify opportunities to support worker health and safety, through sleep education, monitoring for sleepiness and fatigue, ensuring countermeasures are available (e.g., caffeine), and assessing for opportunities to change organizational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Prescribing patient care providers regularly experience insufficient sleep, putting them at increased risk of committing occupational injuries, accidents, and errors and developing chronic health conditions. OBJECTIVE: Identify antecedents to short sleep (≤6-hours sleep in 24-hour period) in the understudied population of hospital-based Advanced Practice Providers (APPs). METHODS: Using an ethnographic research design, data included APP and key stakeholder interviews, hospital observations, and relevant documents. Interview data were analyzed using modified constant comparative method. RESULTS: Nine APPs were interviewed, revealing four themes: Social/Family Obligations and Value of Connectivity, Community Value of Sleep, Organizational Value of Sleep, and Individual Biology and How the Body Values Sleep. APP decisions to prioritize sleep are based on an interplay of societal, professional, organizational, and personal values. Triangulated data verified results, except regarding how APP sleep deficit can lead to mood disturbances and the lack sleep consideration in patient care error reporting. CONCLUSIONS: Findings demonstrate the importance of consistency in messaging, action, and policy when promoting occupational sleep health among healthcare workers. Implications include instituting worker sleep education, leadership modeling healthy sleep habits, and inclusion of sleep in root cause analyses. Additional consideration includes evaluating the influence of nursing culture on nurse practitioners' sleep habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme chronotype and circadian disrupting work hours may increase nurse disease risks. This national, cross-sectional study of nurses (N = 527) had three hypotheses. When chronotype and shift times are incongruent, nurses will experience increased likelihood of (1) obesity, (2) cardiovascular disease/risk factors, and (3) obesity or cardiovascular disease/risk factors when theoretically linked variables exist. Chronotype mismatched nurses' (n = 206) average sleep (6.1 hours, SD = 1.2) fell below 7–9 hours/24-hours sleep recommendations. Proportion of male nurses was significantly higher chronotype mismatched (12.3%) than matched (6.3%). Analyses found no direct relationship between chronotype match/mismatch with outcome variables. Exploratory interaction analysis demonstrated nurses with mismatched chronotype and above average sleep quality had an estimated 3.51 times the adjusted odds (95% CI 1.52,8.17; p =.003) of being obese. Although mechanism is unclear, this suggests sleep quality may be intricately associated with obesity. Further research is needed to inform nurses on health risks from disrupted sleep, chronotypes, and shift work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shift workers are at risk for developing serious health issues due to short sleep. One cause of short sleep is circadian misalignment: sleep time is not synchronized with the body's natural circadian rhythms. Although circadian rhythms are strongly driven by the light/dark cycle, humans have individualized sleep time preferences (chronotypes) based on genetics, development, and external influences. Evening chronotype individuals fall asleep later than average and have a higher risk for developing various noncommunicable diseases. What is unclear is the association between chronotype, shift work, and risks for acquiring chronic conditions. This review is focused on shift worker chronotype and associations with obesity. Because of the paucity of research, other health issues connected with circadian misalignment were included, allowing for a total of 21 research studies. Evidence from this review supports chronotype and certain health issues are associated with shift work, even after adjusting for short sleep duration. In addition, there is evidence to support future research on how shift worker chronotype matched with shift timing impacts worker health. Through better understanding of this interface, occupational health providers can provide more comprehensive worker education on the risks associated with shift work and sleep disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the increased prevalence of chronic disease and health care costs, more individuals are treated in the home, which has augmented the demand for more Home Healthcare Workers (HHCWs) in the field. HHCWs face multiple hazards with injury rates being more than double the national average; however, current studies on HHCWs have provided limited understanding of their occupational safety & health experiences and exposures. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency and risk of exposures through perceptions of HHCWs. The results of this study provide an initial picture of the different risks that HHCWs face daily. These findings show that studies involving HHCWs occupational safety need to be job-specific, and the proposed interventions will also likely need to be tailored by HHCWs type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To identify occupational exposures for home health-care nurses and aides. Background Home health-care workers' occupational injury rates in the USA are higher than the national average, yet research on causative exposures and hazards is limited. Methods Participants were interviewed about annual frequency of occupational exposures and hazards. Exposure and hazard means were compared between home health-care nurses and aides using a Wilcoxon two-sample test. Results A majority of the sample was over 40 years old and obese, potentially increasing injury risks. Home health-care nurses performed more clinical tasks, increasing exposure to blood-borne pathogens. Home health-care aides performed more physical tasks with risk for occupational musculoskeletal injuries. They also dispensed oral medications and anti-cancer medications, and were exposed to drug residue at a frequency comparable to home health-care nurses. Both groups were exposed to occupational second-hand smoke. Conclusions Establishing employee safety-related policies, promoting healthy lifestyle among staff, and making engineered tools readily available to staff can assist in decreasing exposures and hazards. Implications for nursing management Implications for nursing management include implementation of health-promotion programmes, strategies to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke, ensuring access to and education on assistive and safety devices, and education for all staff on protection against drug residue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]