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Impact of Nurse Staffing Levels on Patient Outcomes

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Impact of Nurse Staffing Levels on Patient Outcomes

One of the many issues that have been found to affect the achievement of patient

outcomes is the nurse staffing levels or rather the nurse to patient ratios applied within healthcare

facilities. The first impact that an increased nursing to patient ratio to patient outcomes is that

there will be low quality of care provided due to the heavy workload that each caregiver will be

assigned to do (Haddad, Annamaraju & Toney-Butler2023). Each worker will be required to

attend to more patients and hence the nurses will not focus on fully administering quality care

rather their main aim will be to finish their roles and probably rest. Another impact is that with

low staffing levels, both the rates of nosocomial infections and mortality of patients will increase

(Rae et al , 2021). These two reasons are brought about by low quality care that the nurses will

showcase based on the workload they are assigned that is probably above their limits. When all

these factors are combined, the patient and family satisfaction levels also reduce drastically due

to the lack of achievement of the desired patient outcomes.

Various countries and states across the world have implemented jurisdictions of the

minimum nurse to patient ratios. The main reason behind this is that most healthcare providers

have discovered that with increased staffing levels or lowering the nurse to patient ratio, there are

higher chances of achieving the patient needs (Griffiths et al, 2020). This might be contributed

by the fact that a nurse has more time with a patient and therefore it allows them to be keen with

their assessments and the whole caregiving process. It also prevents the omission of essential

care by nurses which might be the main reason to the contribution of increased patient

difficulties (Cho et al, 2020). The neglected or missed activities during caregiving process tend

to increase with lower levels of staffing hence leading to less adherence or consideration of

patient safety (Falk, Nymark, Göransson & von Vogelsang, 2022). Finally, the low nurse staffing
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levels have been highly associated with reduced patient experiences during the caregiving

process (Kieft, de Brouwer, Francke, et al, 2014). This is due to the fact that when a nurse is

assigned more patients to attend to within any day, they tend to have increased pressure that

makes them produce low quality of care hence affecting the patient experience.
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References

Cho, Lee, J., You, S. J., Song, K. J., & Hong, K. J. (2020). Nurse staffing, nurses prioritization,

missed care, quality of nursing care, and nurse outcomes. International Journal of

Nursing Practice, 26(1), e12803–n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijn.12803

Falk, A.-C., Nymark, C., Göransson, K. E., & von Vogelsang, A.-C. (2022). Missed nursing care

in the critical care unit, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative cross-

sectional study. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 72, 103276.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccn.2022.103276

Griffiths, P., Saville, C., Ball, J., Jones, J., Pattison, N., Monks, T., & Safer Nursing Care Study

Group (2020). Nursing workload, nurse staffing methodologies and tools: A systematic

scoping review and discussion. International journal of nursing studies, 103, 103487.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103487

Haddad LM, Annamaraju P, Toney-Butler TJ (2023). Nursing Shortage. [Updated 2023 Feb 13].

In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available

from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493175/

Kieft, R.A., de Brouwer, B.B., Francke, A.L. et al. (2014). How nurses and their work

environment affect patient experiences of the quality of care: a qualitative study. BMC

Health Serv Res 14, 249. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-249

Rae, P., Pearce, S., Greaves, P. J., DallOra, C., Griffiths, P., & Endacott, R. (2021). Outcomes

sensitive to critical care nurse staffing levels: A systematic review. Intensive & Critical

Care Nursing, 67, 103110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iccn.2021.103110