Shift Work, Quality of life and Work Capacity among tunisian nurses

Aging issues at work including shift work has continued to grow over the past twenty years. A differential approach to different occupational groups has showed that the final last years of employment are painful in the health care sector because of shift work . Its tolerance depends on the capacity of each population to face job strain . The aim of our study is to evaluate the influence of shift work on work capacity of hospital nurses , and to identify its influence on their quality of life. It¿s a cross sectional study conducted over 15 months ,involving a representative sample of 293 nurses working in 2 university hospitals It included an evaluation of physical capacity through different tests allowing the evaluation of the maximum hand grip strength (grip strength), joint flexibility, respiratory capacity (peak flow), strength of the lower limbs (sitting and standing test)and postural controle (balance test).Cognitive ability was performed with the manual dexterity test (O'Connor), the Corsi cubes test, the reaction time test and the Stroop Victoria test.The study was completed by a questionnaire exploring the ability of work(WAI), Karasek scale and quality of life.