NURSES AND TWELVE HOUR SHIFTS: UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF WOMEN AND WORK.
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 273
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Women's Studies.
Description: Women nurses working twelve hour shifts was the focus of this naturalistic study. Experiential analysis guided data collection and analysis to describe the experience and meaning of twelve hour shiftwork. Qualitative, triangulated methods of data collection were utilized which included intensive interviews, participant observation, and the researcher's diary. Participants were female, working nurses ranging in age from 26 to over 45 years.

Audiotaped and transcribed interviews were organized and read multiple times as the primary data source. Latent and manifest content analysis and constant comparison were used to identify what informants described as work meaning. Categorization by level identified six initial data baskets: professional issues; shiftwork/work issues; personal issues; family issues; social issues; and, feminist issues. Further analysis led to higher level assessment, leading ultimately to an overall theme of a "struggle to care.".

Findings surrounding the struggle to care indicated that work meaning to nurses was effective caring. Effective caring was described as providing physical and emotional support, as serving as a patient advocate, and as meeting clients' multiple needs. The struggle to care on twelve hour shifts was described in three separate contexts: (1) Nurses described the struggle to care in a physical or environmental context using Vietnam-era words; (2) they described the struggle to care in a temporal context as having the time to connect with patients; and (3) participants described their struggle to care as a personal battle as well. While caring appears extensively in nursing literature, the "struggle" to care is less evident and remains the major contribution of this study.

Nurse informants also described having to limit their caring when the struggle to care was too graphic, too exhausting, or too much for them to handle. When overwhelmed, nurses resorted to "controlled caring" which was typified by setting limits and viewing work as a job rather than a profession. Controlled caring may be more prevalent on twelve hour shifts than eight hour shifts because of the increased time at the bedside.

Further study is indicated in the areas of nursing practice, nursing education, and nursing theory to further describe work meaning for women nurses. Twelve hour shifts is just one area of needed exploration.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-06, Section: B, page: 2160.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1994.

School code: 0227.