Behavioral effects and body activity level in female hospital staff nurses during work hour.

To examine if there are changes in the levels of affections over different times of day, affective state measures, alertness, irritability, mental tension, headache and anxiety of 100 female staff nurses were assessed, on visual analogue scales at 2-h intervals over a 24-h work cycle spread over three different shift works. Oral temperature was also recorded simultaneously. Sleep pattern, dietary habit and menstruation cycle of subjects were monitored. Analysis of variance reflected a significant rise in oral temperature as the day progressed with a peak during 16:00-18:00 h, which however gradually declined thereafter. Significant changes in the affective states indicated ascendancy in alertness, mental tension and anxiety within the first few hours of the beginning of each shift work, but descendancy towards the end of it. Further studies on some more affective states and physiological measures which may show parallelism have been suggested.