Assessment of Nursing Workload and Related Factors in Intensive Care Units Using the Nursing Activities Score

Background and Suitable workload of nurses is one of the main factors in patient care safety and quality assurance. Thus, measuring nurse's workload in ICUs is really important. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of nursing workload in ICU and associated factors using Nursing Activity Scale (NAS). A descriptive-analytical study was performed in 285 ICU inpatients in educational Hospitals affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. The patient's demographic data and medical data were collected through a checklist during three months. NAS was applied to evaluate the nursing workload. The sample consisted of 162 (56.8%) male and 123(43.2%) female. The mean age of patients was 42 ± 4.2. Among the subjects 164 (57.5%) had medication and 121(42.5%) were on surgical treatments. Most of the patients (48.4%) were admitted from operating rooms. The mean scores of NAS were 121.56 ± 40.49, 105.95 ± 34.98, and 99.57 ± 26.07, in morning, afternoon and evening shifts, respectively. The study showed a high degree of nursing workload in ICU in three working shifts. Using NAS is recommended for determining the ratio of the nurse's activities to their numbers in order to provide high quality patient care in ICUs via allocating adequate number of nursing staff.