Rationing of nursing care in intensive care units

Abstract

The nursing practice refers to a wide range of tasks and responsibilities. In a situation where there is a problem of limited resources, nurses are forced to ration the patient’s care—that is, minimize and skip some tasks. The main purpose of this work was to assess the rationing level of nursing care among staff in the intensive care units. Methods: The research included 150 anaesthesiological nurses in the Silesian Region in Poland. The research was conducted from July to October 2019 using the standardized Perceived Implicit Rationing of Nursing Care (PRINCA) questionnaire on rationing nursing care, assessing the quality of patient care, and job satisfaction. The Modified Fatigue Impact Scale (MFIS) standardized questionnaire was used to assess the level of fatigue of respondents in the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial spheres. Results: Sociodemographic factors, such as gender, age, place of residence, education, seniority, and type of employment were not found to affect the rationing level of nursing care in the intensive care unit. The average quality of patient care was 6.05/10 points, while the average job satisfaction rating was 7.13/10 points. Analysis of the MFIS questionnaire showed that respondents experienced fatigue between “rare” and “sometimes”, and nursing staff fatigue was the main factor for rationing care. Conclusions: The higher the level of fatigue, the greater the rationing of care and the less satisfaction from work.