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Prolonged night shift is associated with high burnout rate, but the physiological effects of a 16 h shift remain undetermined. Here we evaluated fatigue and stress via salivary assays to determine the correlation between stress and fatigue and prolonged night shifts. Twenty-five nurses (9 men, 16 women; 16 h night shift (n = 13), 8 h day shift (n = 12)) from Juntendo University Koshigaya Hospital were evaluated for four consecutive workdays separated by off days. Salivary samples were collected upon waking and before sleep on non-working days, before and after the day and night shifts, and before and after the break during the nocturnal schedule, and analyzed for levels of cortisol, chromogranin A, α-amylase activity and secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA). On nonworking days, cortisol levels showed similar kinetic pattern in both nurses. On working days, daytime nurses' cortisol levels showed normal circadian pattern throughout the shift. Night nurses' cortisol levels at the beginning of the shift were comparable to that of the normal morning elevation. α-Amylase activity in the night shift nurses was higher than day shift nurses through each period. No significant differences in chromogranin A and sIgA levels were detected between day and night shift workers. A 16 h night shift may cause marked circadian misalignment in cortisol levels.

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The purpose of this study is to obtain a perspective of the communication objectively and analyze the relationship between assertion types and interpersonal communications in a nursing organization of a university hospital. To promote the communications, assertive communication which enables self-expression attracts attention recently. However, in the previous studies of the assertion and communication in the context of nursing organization, it cannot be regarded that the study of this field was clarified scientifically although a few studies exist to clarify the relation with practical communication. Therefore, this study visualizes the communication channels scientifically with electronic sensors and is to clarify how the index influences them with the type of assertion. Participants of this study were 26 nurses in a maternity ward of a university hospital. Measures of this study were electronic sensors and questionnaires. The electronic badges, developed by MIT and applied by Health High-Technologies Corporation in Japan, are used for measuring the communication channels and social signaling behavior of nursing organizations in university hospitals. The results were the communication time of the nurses who had high assertive scores was concentrated in the middle area and the communication time of the nurses who had high passive aggressive scores was relatively low. In the communication signaling, one characteristic was if we analyze the communication time of connecting each nurse, we can see that the nurses with high assertive scores and the nurses with low assertive scores spend a lot of time communicating within their own group. The results of these characteristics show that there is a connection between assertion types and the amount of communication time and the connection of communication channels.