THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG NURSING ASSIGNMENT PATTERN, PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS, NURSING RESOURCES, AND PATIENT SATISFACTION.
Contributors: University Of Illinois At Chicago, Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 214
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Cost containment programs within hospitals have necessitated close scrutiny of patient care needs, the organization and utilization of nursing personnel, and the relationship of these factors to patient satisfaction with the care provided. Therefore, the research question was: What are the relationships among nursing assignment pattern, patient charcteristics, nursing resources, and patient satisfaction with nursing care? As a descriptive, exploratory study, no hypotheses were posed. The study was conducted in a Midwestern, community hospital that practiced primary nursing.

Subjects consisted of 115 randomly selected patients, equally distributed between two large medical-surgical units, and the assigned nurse (N = 60) for each patient. Patients exhibited a variety of medical and surgical conditions. They ranged in age from 19 to 95 years with a mean age of 56.90 years. Forty patients were male and 75 were female. The mean estimated total length of stay was 11.63 days. The assigned nurse group consisted of 60 registered nurses, 30 from each unit. Only one RN was male. Forty-three percent were prepared at the Master's/Baccalaureate level and were full-time employees.

The four instruments used to collect the data were the Nursing Assignment Questionnaire, the Patient Characteristics Questionnaire, the Nursing Resources Questionnaire, and the Patient Satisfaction Instrument. Randomly selected patients completed the patient satisfaction questionnaire. The nursing assignment and patient characteristics questionnaires were then administered to the patients' assigned nurse. The Nursing Resources Questionnaire was completed by the investigator using relevant unit staffing and personnel records. Data were collected on the day and evening shifts for 17 consecutive days.

Results for the nursing assignment pattern elements supported the practice of a modified form of primary nursing. Scores for patient satisfaction (M = 1.99) indicated that patients were satisfied with their nursing care. No significant relationships were found among the major study variables. Absence of correlations was attributed to homogeneity of the patient sample, low item variability on the measures, low internal consistency reliability of the nursing assignment pattern (NAP) instruments, and rater inconsistencies. Results indicated the need for further testing and refinement of the conceptual framework and the NAP instruments.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-11, Section: B, page: 4469.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1986.

School code: 0806.