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Nurse Staffing

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Nurse Staffing
Review of Literature
Jean Guerrier
Grand Canyon University
Professional Research Project
NRS-441v
Anna Auler
June 23, 2013

Review of Literature
Adequate nurse staffing for patient care has been a major difficulty in the health care system . Patients’ acuity continues to grow at a fast rate while hospitals continue to struggle with the adequate number for nurse-to-patient ratio, leaving nurses in a very difficult situation while trying to provide the best care possible to their patients. The low nurse-to-patients ratio can be remedied when public and private hospitals realize the negative impact on the outcome of care. This paper will try to point out the negative effects of low nurse-to-patient ratio has on outcome of care.
Like other professions that continue to face obstacles, nursing has its own obstacles that it must face from time to time. The world population increases so will the obstacles that nursing will have to face, but good administration can be used to defend the work conditions under which nurses are forced to work.
Many studies have been done to point out the problem, with a pile of evidence to support the need to alleviate the burden on the nurses but to no avail. A study conducted in the Chinese hospital by Zhu, You, et al. (2012). Nurse Staffing Levels Make a Difference on Patient Outcomes: A Multisite Study in Chinese Hospitals proved, “more nursing staff per patient had statistically significant positive effects on all necessary nursing care, nurses’ reports of quality of care, their confidence on patients’ self-care ability on discharge from hospital, patient adverse events, as well as patients’ report of satisfaction (Zhu, You, et al, 2012, p.266)”. The study was composed of 181 hospitals across mainland China. The sample that was used was 31provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions with level 3 hospitals. To show the strength of the study, the researchers applied statistics to prove their results.
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References: Cho. S, June. KJ, Kim. YM, Cho. Y, Yoo. CS, Yun. S, Sung. YH. (2009). Nurse staffing, quality of nursing care and nurse job outcomes in intensive care units McPhee. M, Ellis. J, and McCutheon. AS. (2006). Nurse staffing and patient safety. Canadian Nurse Yang. K. (2003). Relationships between nurse staffing and patient outcomes. Journal of Nursing Research (Taiwan Nurses Association) Curtin. LL. (2003). An integrated analysis of nurse staffing and related variables: Effects on patient outcomes Sidani. S, Manojlovich. M, and Covell. C. (2010). Nurse Dose: Validation and Refinement of a concept

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