The adaptation of night nurses to different work schedules

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Abstract
Twenty-nine full-time permanent night nurses, 94 part-time permanent night nurses, and 44 nurses working in a weekly rotating two-shift system but doing some night work from time to time answered questionnaires on morningness, rigidity of sleeping habits, aspects and effects of night work, subjective health, etc. For one month they also carefully registered their sleeping times. The full-time nurses displayed a tendency to be evening people and were more vigorous and less rigid in their sleeping habits than the rotating nurses. The latter mentioned more subjective health complaints. The most striking difference between the permanent night nurses and the rotating nurses was found in their evaluation of aspects and effects of shift work. The permanent flight nurses always gave a more favourable evaluation. There was not much difference between the sleep of the three groups, except that the permanent nights nurses slept on average less than the rotating nurses. The differences found can be explained by the fact that the permanent night nurses freely chose night work and organized their family life accordingly, while for the rotating nurses night work, although relatively rare, always meant a disturbance of personal and family functioning.