Impact on the staff of hours of work: Example of a hospital in Ankara

Parallel to the successful economic performance, there has been a remarkable progress in health sector in Turkey. In the framework of Health Transformation Program, efforts to improve organize and provide healthcare services have gained importance. This study investigates the impact of shift work on the performance of health care workers. For this end a survey has been implemented where participants have been selected by snowball sampling technique. The survey consists of four sections. Firstly the socio ? demographic information of healthcare workers have been gathered. After the questions regarding their sleep patterns,health status, and subjective work performance have been asked. In order to assess the impact of shift work on performance a Work Ability Index has been utilized. 150 healthcare workers have participated in the survey. Analysis results indicate that healthcare workers experience significant health and sleep problems. Even though there are content and happy with their Works, they rather would not do this job in the future. Empirical results do not indicate any negative impact of shift work on performance. However when the sub-items of Work Ability Index is taken into consideration, it emerges that shift work has a significant negative impact on health. Moreover those who work on shifts are pessimistic about their future levels of performance compared to the healthcare workers who do work on regular basis. Key Words: 1 - Shift Work 2 - Performance 3 - Health Sector 4 - Work Ability Index