Perceptions and Experiences of Nightshift Nurses: Views from the Wa Regional Hospital in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Abstract

This paper is one of three articles resulting from a comprehensive study carried out among nurses at a Public Regional Hospital in the Upper West Regional capital of Wa. It focused on the perceptions and recounted experiences of nurses who participated in nightshift duties. The main objective was to explore nurses' perceptions and experiences encountered during their routine nightshift duties relative to their health/wellbeing, work environment/work performance and the status of nightshift. Using a qualitative approach, 35 nightshift nurses were purposively selected for the study.  Interviews and two FGDs were used to elicit relevant information for the study. Data collected was processed, analyzed and discussed using a constructionist approach to generate relevant themes. A thorough content analysis was used to tease out relevant thematic areas emerging from the data. The main findings corroborated earlier findings that, nightshift nurses experienced regular health concerns attributable to sleep deprivation and fatigue, diminished work performances as a result of poor work environment and a view that night shift was seriously underrated. We concluded that nightshift indeed posed a number of health risks hence has implications for patient care.