ABSTRACT
Designing the working day is not just a matter of changing the shift system. It also requires reflection on the working conditions and a negotiation of solutions with the stakeholders concerned. This article seeks to show that a participatory approach, built using organisational simulation, provides a framework with which to understand the reality of each profession and co-construct suitable solutions. Our action-research took place in a hospital's pneumology ward. The methodology can be broken down into four phases: diagnosis, sharing of the diagnosis, organisational simulation (the focus of this article) and experimenting with solutions. The results show that the approach gave the stakeholders the opportunity to discover and discuss the rules and constraints of actual work, to compare their different views, and to develop a new and shared view of the work situation. The approach allowed them to co-construct relevant solutions and to appropriate the changes necessary for their success.
Subject(s)
Shift Work Schedule , Humans , Health Services Research , Hospitals , Surveys and Questionnaires , Computer SimulationABSTRACT
The aim of this field study is to describe night shift resting and napping strategies and to examine their beneficial effects on sleepiness and quality of work. The study was carried out with 16 nurses working in an intensive care unit. Data collected during 20 night shifts were related to job demands (systematic observations), to the duration and timing of rests and naps taken by nurses (systematic observations, sleep diaries), to sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale), and to quality of work scores (visual analog scale). The results showed that the number of rests and naps depended on the job demands. Resting and napping lowered the levels of sleepiness at the end of the shift. There was no direct relationship between sleepiness and the quality of work score. Discussions about the choice of indicators for the quality of work are necessary. Suggestions for implementing regulations for prescribed napping during night shifts are presented.
Subject(s)
Nursing Staff, Hospital , Quality of Health Care , Rest/psychology , Sleep , Work Schedule Tolerance/psychology , Workload/psychology , Adult , Disorders of Excessive Somnolence/etiology , Humans , Middle Aged , Rest/physiology , Self-Assessment , Work Schedule Tolerance/physiology , Young AdultABSTRACT
Good shift changeovers contribute to ensuring continuity and reliability in shift work. In situations where production is not maintained 24 h a day, changeovers with meetings (SCM) between the two work teams (written plus oral face-to-face handovers) alternate with changeovers without meetings (SCnM; written handovers only). An ergonomic work analysis on an aircraft assembly line showed that (1) incoming and outgoing operators met during the overlap time allotted by the company, and (2) the content of the exchanges was richer for SCMs than for SCnMs. SCMs enabled the operators to pass on and process more aspects of their work than SCnMs did. SCMs also allowed incoming operators to validate their predictions, and enabled both outgoing and incoming operators to update their mental models and work together on peripheral aspects of the technical process over a greater time span. The findings highlight the importance of allowing overlap time in shift work.
