Coffee Talk: A Jolt for Night Shift Education

Abstract

Background Education opportunities for night shift nurses are limited compared with those for their day-shift counterparts. However, patients remain critically ill regardless of shift and require intensive nursing care at all hours. Overnight, this care is often provided with fewer resources. These challenges can lead to disengagement and high turnover on the night shift. Objectives To see whether initiation of an informal education series called “Coffee Talk” could improve accessibility to learning for night shift nurses and elevate perception of support from administrators and overall job satisfaction. Methods The lecture series was created to facilitate education for night shift nurses. The program features various speakers within the interdisciplinary team discussing topics chosen by the nursing staff. The talks are presented in an informal setting during overnight hours. An electronic survey tool was used to determine nurses’ opinions regarding Coffee Talk, using a retrospective pretest and posttest format. Questions centered on the type of educational offerings, relevance to practice, perceived leadership support, convenience of attendance, and overall job satisfaction. Results More than half of the nurses (59%) responded. All scores improved from before to after the intervention. The largest increases occurred in convenience of educational offerings and nurses’ perception of leaders removing barriers to learning. Overall job satisfaction increased from 83% to 93%. Conclusions The introduction of an informal educational series improved nurses’ access to education and nurses’ feelings of support from administrators and overall job satisfaction.