Education Recommendations

4.1 Occupational health and safety educational programs include formal and informal education sessions that address:

a) recognizing and preventing fatigue;

b) the factors that contribute to fatigue;

c) the implications of nurse fatigue on patient safety, nurse well-being and organizational well-being; d) sleep hygiene; and

e) utilizing self-assessment practices for fatigue.

4.2 Academic Settings address the issue of nursing fatigue in the curriculum by:

a) incorporating content related to nurse fatigue in the curriculum for nursing students, preceptors, professors and other educators; and

b) establishing a method of evaluation that feeds back into the process to determine if student nurse fatigue and nursing faculty fatigue in the academic setting and workplace have been reduced.

4.3 Organizations and academic settings:

a) incorporate information regarding fatigue prevention and recognition strategies into orientation programs for staff, nursing students and preceptors;

b) enhance leadership courses to address issues related to fatigue; and

c) promote research to assist health-care organizations in implementing and evaluating strategies to address nurse fatigue.