Utilising nursing staff according to the degree of dependance of the patients

Abstract

Quality of care in hospitals mainly depends on an effective use of resources, especially the staff. In the case of nursing, it is important to establish the nurse-patient ratio in order to optimise the quality of care. Thus, nursing staff must be aware of the conditions of the patients in their care, in order to determine both how many members of staff are required and the preparation needed. A quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out. The sample consisted of 98 patients, selected through non-probabilistic sampling for convenience. The information was collected over a period of two months using 'Test Delta' which determined the degree of dependence. The statistical package SPSS V20.00 was used for the analysis. The study identified four levels of dependence: no assistance required (22.4%), minor assistance required (28.6%), moderate assistance required (22.4%) and substantial assistance required (26.5%). Once categorised, the nursing staff demand was calculated. It was estimated that thirteen nursing professionals are required to satisfy the demand for care. The data reported shows that the majority of staff should be assigned to patients in the 'substantial assistance required' category. These results lead to the conclusion that it is important to develop methodologies to efficiently determine and assign nursing staff, taking into account the level of dependency as this is closely linked with the best outcome in patients.