The Fatigue Experience of Shift Work Nurses

교대근무간호사의 피로경험

The purpose of this study was to understand the process and investigate basic theory of fatigue experience of shift work nurses. The present study adopted grounded theory methodology on fatigue of shift work nurses. The participants for this study were 15 shift work nurses who were in the age of 25 to 35, the clinical experience of 2 to 14 years and the work department of ICU. ER. ward and delivery room. The data were collected from 2000 to 2003 by using interviews and observations. The contents of the interviews were tape-recorded and were drawn through repeated method. And then were analyzed into the concept, subcategories, and categories with the open coding process and axial coding was done to identify the relationships of the concepts and categories according to the paradigm models. The core category generated, which was a central phenomena of the exhaustion process. The causal condition is change events. The central condition of exhaustion were sorted as physical discomfort, decreasing vigor, psychological instability, feeling of sleeping desire, changing face impression and being heavy body. The intervening condition were discovered as social$\cdot$ psychology$\cdot$physical resist and positive$\cdot$negative interaction strategies. The consequences of the fatigue process is the short term exhaustion relief and long term residual exhaustion. The fatigue process of this study was 'break through exhaustion' of change event-exhaustion-resist-resolve intervention-adaptation. This study offers better understanding on fatigue process of shift work nurses and may facilitate more appropriate interventive strategies to support, information and knowledges according to fatigue process.