Reach of an Occupational Health and Safety Program to Improve Sleep and Fatigue Among Nurses.

Background: Training and education may benefit nurses whose nonstandard work hours put them at risk of poor sleep, fatigue, and ensuing adverse health and safety outcomes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published "Training for Nurses on Shift Work and Long Work Hours" in 2015 as a free online resource which remains one of the few trainings available on this topic. However, the extent to which nurses have completed the program and the characteristics of current learners have not been examined.

Objective: We aimed to describe the potential reach of the NIOSH Training for Nurses between May 2015 through December 2020.

Methods: Data were obtained on learners who received continuing education credits upon completion of the NIOSH Training for Nurses. We applied a widely used implementation and evaluation framework, RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance), to describe the potential reach of the nurses' training and provide descriptive statistics of learners.

Results: From 2015 to 2020, 7899 learners from different occupations received continuing education credits for completing the training. Approximately 60% of learners were nurses and 30% were students. Among nurses, most were Registered Nurses (93%), with few Licensed Practical Nurses (6%) and Advanced Practice Nurses (2%). In 2020, the number of learners who were nurses represented only 0.09% of all licensed US nurses.

Conclusion: A renewed dissemination plan may help extend training reach to the larger population of licensed US nurses. The NIOSH training remains a seminal, freely available, online resource for nurses, filling a critical gap in training to manage work-related fatigue.