Investigation of the causes and effects of stress in nurses working 'floating shifts'.

Background: Nurses working in hospitals may occasionally be reassigned to other wards for various reasons, for example to cover sudden absences or to support heavier-than-usual workloads. This practice is known as 'floating shifts'.

Aim: To assess how nurses are affected by the stress of working floating shifts, to understand what causes and alleviates this stress and to identify strategies that can be used to reduce stress.

A real-time Excel-based scheduling solution for nursing staff reallocation.

Aim This article describes the development and testing of an Excel-based scheduling solution for the flexible allocation and reallocation of nurses to cover sudden, unplanned absences among permanent nursing staff. Method A quasi-experimental, one group, pre- and post-test study design was used ( Box 1 ) with total sampling. Participants (n=17) were selected purposefully by including all ward managers (n=8) and assistant ward managers (n=9) from one university hospital department.