NURSING VARIABLES RELATED TO THE QUALITY OF PATIENT CARE (SATISFACTION).
Contributors: University Of Illinois At Chicago, Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1996
Number of pages: 178
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Industrial.
Description: Demand has increased for outcome measures of quality care to demonstrate value to health care consumers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the registered nurse variables related to outcomes in adult inpatients.

Data were collected from six units. The data sources included: (a) registered nurses (n = 112); (b) unit statistics; and (c) patients (n = 249). The structure variables included registered nurse and unit characteristics. The process variables included work environment and was assessed by the Nurse Work Index (Kramer and Schmalenberg, 1988). The patient outcome variables included length of stay, perceived health status, life satisfaction, report of critical incidents and patient satisfaction (measured by the Patient Satisfaction Instrument (PSI, Hinshaw and Atwood, 1982) and the Index of Patient Satisfaction (IPS, developed by the investigator)).

Across the patient care units no differences were found for the registered nurse characteristics, importance to job satisfaction and ability to provide quality care, incidence of critical incidents, and patient satisfaction. Differences were found for the registered nurses' scores for job satisfaction and ability to provide quality care and the patients' length of stay, perceived health status, life satisfaction, and expectations about the quality of nursing care.

Several relationships were found among the variables. Nursing hours per patient day was related to nurse job satisfaction and perceived ability to provide quality care. Years as a registered nurse and years worked at the medical center were correlated with patient satisfaction. Surprisingly, the scores for job satisfaction and ability to provide quality care were negatively correlated with patient satisfaction. Expectations about the quality of nursing care was correlated with the patient satisfaction scores. Those patients who experienced a negative critical incident were less satisfied with their care. A stepwise regression identified that expectation of nursing quality, perceived health at discharge, higher education, and negative critical incidents were predictors of patient satisfaction as measured by the IPS (R squared =.22).

Results from this study reflect a resource rich environment prior to major restructuring and role redesign. These findings could serve as a baseline for a longitudinal study to examine the impact of nursing care on outcome indicators of quality care.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-07, Section: B, page: 4299.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1996.

School code: 0806.